Your question
Where can I check the person providing my care?
Get two full names: your treating clinician and the pharmacy that would dispense any prescribed medicine. Check the names against the public records.
Where do I check a doctor?
Public licence records for doctors, including any formal action against them, are kept by a state medical board.
Find the boards responsible for doctors’ licences in the directory provided by the Federation of State Medical Boards.
Use the board for the state where care will take place. Look for the exact name and current licence status.
Even if a doctor has no public action in their record, that does not tell you the quality of the care.
What changes for an online visit?
Rules described for September 2026 require an online doctor to hold a licence or another permission in the patient’s location.
As of September 2026, some states let a person treating patients online register with the state instead of getting a full state licence.
This is for someone based in another state. Ask which permission applies, then check it with the board.
Where do I check the pharmacy?
Pharmacy licence records are held by each state’s board of pharmacy.
Links to state pharmacy licence searches come from the US drug agency, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
As of September 2026, most states also require permission from their own board before an out-of-state pharmacy ships medicine there.
A pharmacy licence does not prove that each medicine it supplies meets the rules.
Ask who wrote the prescription, who made the medicine, and whether that exact medicine is approved or made to order.
What about a badge on the website?
Seals and logos that appear official may be fake, warns the Federal Trade Commission. This agency handles consumer protection in the US.
Check the record behind the badge. Ask a separate question about the plan for care.
What matters here?
Get the names, find the public records, and ask how the care itself will be assessed.