Criminal checks increasingly a fact of life for physicians

State medical boards say scrutiny of license applicants helps keep bad doctors out of their states.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. Dec. 20, 2004.

First came the fingerprinting. Then the criminal background check.

Rebecca J. Patchin, MD, submitted to both. Was she seeking high-level national security clearance? A job with the FBI?

No. Dr. Patchin, an AMA trustee, was simply applying to get a medical license in California.

She didn't mind the scrutiny for the sake of medicine.

"I remember that they said you had to do this to get a license. I wanted to get a license, so I jumped through the hoops," said Dr. Patchin, an anesthesiologist and pain management specialist in Riverside, Calif., who received her license in 1991.

Thousands of physicians across the nation have had a similar experience. That's because in the past decade, more states have adopted laws that allow state medical boards to conduct fingerprint and criminal background checks of medical license applicants.

California was among the frontrunners and has been conducting checks since at least the late 1970s. In 1997, Florida began requiring fingerprinting as part of the licensure process. In 1998, the Federation of State Medical Boards recommended that its members require criminal background checks on all applicants for licenses or permits.

Since then, several states have taken action. The FSMB knows of at least 12 states that have the legal authority to conduct national and criminal background checks. At least seven states are authorized to conduct state criminal checks. While some of the states routinely fingerprint and investigate all new applicants, others only conduct reviews when an application raises suspicion.