The AMA Physician Masterfile includes current and historical data on all physicians, including AMA members and nonmembers, and graduates of foreign medical schools who reside in the United States and who have met the educational and credentialing requirements necessary for recognition as physicians. Data on international medical graduates (IMGs), comprising graduates of foreign medical schools residing in the United States, are included in the AMA Physician Masterfile when IMGs enter residency programs accredited by the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). The AMA Physician Masterfile also includes data on IMGs who are licensed to practice medicine but who have not entered ACGME-accredited programs and on physicians licensed to practice medicine in the United States but who are temporarily located abroad.

An AMA Physician Masterfile record is established when individuals enter medical schools accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), or in the case of international medical graduates, upon entry into ACGME-accredited programs. Each AMA Physician Masterfile record includes the physician's name, medical school and year of graduation, gender, birthplace, and birthdate. Additional data (residency training, state licensure, board certification, geographical location and address, type of practice, present employment, and practice specialty) are added from primary data sources or from surveying the physicians directly as the physicians' training and career develop.

Physician records are never removed from the AMA Physician Masterfile, even in the case of a physician's death. The AMA maintains information on more than 130,000 deceased physicians. These data are shared with other organizations and agencies who credential physicians and are used to identify individuals who attempt to fraudulently assume the credentials of deceased physicians.

In summary, AMA Physician Masterfile data span the continuum from undergraduate medical education through practice and comprise databases of 125 LCME-accredited medical schools; 7,900 ACGME-accredited graduate medical education programs and 1,600 teaching institutions; 820,000 physicians; and 19,000 medical group practices.

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