Verification
How verification works
1,158 clinicians are listed on Black Doctors, and 971 of them carry a license check made in the last 365 days. This page explains what we check, what each badge means, and what a listing does not claim.
The three checks behind a Verified badge
All three have to pass, and stay passed, for a profile to show the Verified badge. A listing that has not been through all three is still shown, and says so.
Self-identified
The clinician states, in their own words, that they are Black. We never infer identity from a name, a photograph, or where someone works.
License-checked
We match the clinician against the NPI registry and confirm an active license with the relevant state board.
Claimed
The clinician confirms their own details and controls the profile from then on. An unclaimed, roster-sourced listing says so.
What a listing without a Verified badge means
Most listings here are unclaimed. They come from rosters clinicians listed themselves on, so check 01 has passed, and nobody has claimed the profile yet, so check 03 has not. Where we have checked a license, the profile and the card show a "License checked" date and the receipt shows what was checked. Where we have not, there is no badge at all: we would rather show nothing than a softer version of a claim we cannot make.
What we will never use to list someone
We will never list a clinician based on a faculty page, a photograph, a name, or an institutional affiliation such as a listed school connection. None of those establish that a person is Black, and building a directory from them risks listing people who should not be here. Only a person's own statement, or a roster on which they listed themselves, ever establishes identity on Black Doctors.
What Verified means, and when it expires
A Verified badge means the clinician claimed the profile, said themselves that they are Black, and passed the NPI and license checks, and that record is not more than 365 days old. Verification expires automatically after 365 days, and a profile is re-checked before that badge is renewed. Every profile has a public receipt showing what was checked and when.
Ongoing re-checks
We re-run the NPI registry check every quarter. If a license lapses or an NPI record is deactivated, we remove the badge and let the clinician know.
If something is wrong
If a listing is wrong, tell us. Two situations come up most: "I am listed and should not be" (you are not Black, or you would rather not be included) and "This is me, and it is wrong" (a wrong address, an out of date credential, or anything else that needs fixing). Either way, contact us and we will handle it directly.