Find the public record
Check the name behind the care.
A full name gives you something to check. A title or badge alone leaves the question open.
FDA is short for the Food and Drug Administration, which reviews medicines in the US.
The short answer
Get the health professional’s full name and role. Then check the record held by the board for that profession.
For a physician, start at the state board
A physician is a doctor licensed to practise medicine.
State medical boards show doctors’ licence status and disciplinary action, meaning a formal penalty the board has imposed on a doctor. What they publish varies by state.
A record without a board penalty does not establish the quality of someone’s care.
The short answer
A pharmacy has a separate licence record, kept by a state board of pharmacy.
Find out which pharmacy would prepare any medicine proposed for you and send it to you; ask for its name.
Do not let a badge do the checking
As of September 2026, the FDA says facility registration and product listing do not amount to approval.
For a pharmacy that makes medicines to order, PCAB accreditation means an outside organisation has checked its medicine-making process against quality standards.
That check is separate from a state licence. It does not test every batch of medicine or tell you how well a treatment works.
Find the board’s own record
Medical-board directoryFind a physician’s state board.Open the evidence note
The Federation of State Medical Boards provides directory links for the state boards that hold doctors’ licence records.
For a different health profession, ask which board holds the person’s record; this doctor directory does not cover every kind of health professional.
Find a state medical boardFDA lookup guideFind a pharmacy’s state search.Open the evidence note
The FDA’s BeSafeRx page links readers to state pharmacy licence searches.
A licence record shows that the pharmacy has a licence; it cannot establish whether all of its medicines are supplied properly.
Find a state pharmacy search