Name the person treating you
Find out your treating professional’s job title and full name. If a doctor is treating you, choose the state medical board based on your location during the visit and look up their record there. That state office issues doctors’ licences.
Which kind of visit meets your needs?
Compare an online visit with a licensed health professional and a visit at an in-person clinic. Ask each service how it would decide whether your injury needs a hands-on exam.
The person treating you must hold a licence or other state permission covering where you are, with some exceptions, as of September 26, 2026.
Look up the person, not the website
State medical boards publish doctors’ licence details and records of action taken against them.
The Federation of State Medical Boards counts these boards as its members and links to their individual websites.
- Ask for the full name used on the licence.
- Use the board covering your physical location when the visit takes place.
- Match the name and check the current licence record.
- Read any public record of penalties or limits placed on the doctor’s work.
A licence record free of public penalties cannot establish the quality of someone’s care.
For someone other than a doctor, find out their job title and which state office handles licences for that work. Ask that office how to check the licence.
If medicine comes up, check the pharmacy too
Which pharmacy will prepare your medicine and send it to you? Get its name.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has links to each state’s pharmacy licence search.
FDA advises avoiding a pharmacy unless it appears on the licensed-pharmacy list for your state.
A listed licence is a starting check; it does not confirm that every prescription is appropriate.
Wait to pay or agree to care until you have names for both the treating professional and the pharmacy, with a way to check each.
Keep going
Look more closely at peptide claims