Why is the Board expanding its online Licensee Information pages?
The Board supports the public’s right to comprehensive information about licensed health care professionals, including facts about disciplinary or criminal history, if any, and other areas of potential concern.

Until recently, state law strictly limited the information the Board could publicly release about its licensees. The law was changed in 2007 to authorize the Board to gather a broad range of information regarding its licensees and make it available to the public.

Public information required under the law includes some facts the Board already provides (such as licensee name, practice address, license number, etc.) as well as several new types of information that were previously confidential.

What types of health care professionals must have their information reported under the law?
All active, licensed physicians and physician assistants.

What new types of required information are included in the new Licensee Information pages?
New required information includes:

• Final suspensions or revocations of hospital privileges
• Final disciplinary orders or actions of any regulatory board or agency, including other state medical boards, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Medicare or the N.C. Medicaid program
• Felony convictions
• Misdemeanor convictions involving offenses against a person, offenses of moral turpitude, offenses involving the use of drugs or alcohol and violations of public health and safety codes.
• Certain malpractice/professional liability payment information

How many of the Board’s licensees report information in one of the new required categories?
As of Dec. 1, about three percent of the Board’s more than 35,000 licensed physicians and physician assistants reported information in any of the five new required categories.

Why should the public be interested in the expansion if so few licensees have new required information?
Patients and others have made it clear that they want and expect this information to be disclosed, and now it is. The Board is confident that visitors to the pages will appreciate this new level of transparency, regardless of whether their health care practitioner is directly affected.

It is also important to understand that the expansion of the Board’s Licensee Information pages goes beyond the new information required under state law. To make the pages more useful to medical consumers who currently use them, the Board added a broad range of new optional information categories.

Licensees may now choose to include such information as:

• Practice Web address
• Days licensee sees patients at the primary practice setting
• Number of years in clinical practice (since completing residency)
• Whether the licensee participates in Medicare and Medicaid if they are accepting new patients in these insurance programs
• Whether the licensee uses electronic medical records in the office setting
• Non-English languages spoken in the office and by the licensee
• Honors and awards
• Professional volunteer service (work in indigent clinics, etc.)
• Current faculty appointments
• Professional publications (peer-reviewed)
• Memberships in professional organizations
• Description of ‘practice philosophy’

While licensees are under no obligation to provide content for the optional categories, the Board has seen good participation to date. As the pages become more established, the Board is hopeful they will evolve into a unique and helpful consumer resource.

How did the Board gather the information for its expanded pages?
The vast majority of required and optional information is self-reported to the Board by licensees. The Board mailed notices to its more than 35,000 active physician and physician assistant licensees directing them to provide their information. The Board mailed two reminder cards to encourage compliance. Licensees used an online data entry portal on the Board’s website to submit their information to the Board.

Does the Board verify the accuracy of information reported by licensees?
No. The Board does not have the resources to verify information for more than 35,000 licensees. Licensees are required by state law to report required information in a timely and accurate manner. The Board is authorized under the law to take disciplinary action against licensees who provide false information or who fail to provide required information.

The Board does take steps to catch errors among information reported in new required categories (felony and misdemeanor convictions, malpractice/professional liability payment information, hospital actions and out-of-state regulatory board/agency actions). All information reported in these categories is reviewed by a staff member before posting. Staff check the licensee-reported information against internal records and other documentation whenever possible.

For example, new malpractice/professional liability payments that are reported to the Board are checked against a list from the National Practitioner Data Bank, the national repository for malpractice/professional liability payment information.

Will the Board monitor its Licensee Information pages to detect inaccuracies?
Yes. The Board will conduct regular random audits of individual Licensee Information pages to check for incomplete or inaccurate information.

How will the Board ensure that licensees keep their information up-to-date?
State law requires licensees who have new required information to report (a new malpractice/professional liability payment or misdemeanor conviction, for example) to provide the information to the Board within 60 days.

In addition, all licensees of the Board must renew their licenses annually. From now on, licensees will be prompted to update their Licensee Information page when they complete the online renewal process.

How will the public access the expanded Licensee Information pages?
Visit www.ncmedboard.org and select “Look Up a Licensee” from the green Quick Links box that appears to the right of the screen. Type the licensee’s name into the search fields and hit return to call up that practitioner’s individual information page.

Patients and others may also search the database using partial names or by city, county or area of practice (e.g. obstetrics, pulmonology, family medicine).