General Public

The NPDB-HIPDB is prohibited by law from disclosing information on a specific practitioner, provider, or supplier to a member of the general public. However, persons or entities may request information in a form that does not identify any particular entity or practitioner (see Public Data Files). For additional information, see the Fact Sheet for the General Public .

You may also wish to contact the State medical board to see if any licensure actions have taken place for a physician. (See NPDB Guidebook Chapter H, Information Sources , for a list of State medical and dental boards.) Malpractice and criminal conviction information is not always available from State medical boards, but can usually be found by performing research at relevant courthouses.

Attorney Access

Attorneys are not permitted to query the HIPDB. However, a plaintiff’s attorney or a plaintiff representing himself or herself is permitted to obtain information from the NPDB under limited conditions:

• A medical malpractice action or claim must have been filed by the plaintiff against a hospital in a State or Federal court or other adjudicated body.
  
• The practitioner on whom the information is requested must be named in the action or claim.

Because the HIPDB does not contain information pertaining to medical malpractice payments, this Data Bank does not meet the conditions outlined above and may not be accessed by plaintiffs' attorneys.

Defense attorneys are not permitted access to the NPDB under Title IV or to the HIPDB because the defendant practitioner is permitted to self-query the Data Banks. Specific procedures for attorney requests are identified in the Fact Sheet for Attorneys .

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