Compliance

As part of our ongoing mission to improve health care quality, protect the public, and reduce health care fraud and abuse in the U.S., the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) reviews the completeness and accuracy of reports that state licensing and certification agencies (state licensing boards) submit to the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB). HRSA gathers data regarding adverse actions taken by state licensing boards and compares it with the actions submitted by the boards to the NPDB.

Compliance Review and Attestation Results

Attestation

Every 2 years all registered entities are required to renew their registration and update their profiles. During the renewal process, entities are required to attest that they have complied with all NPDB reporting and querying requirements for the previous 2 years. Attestation confirms that the entity has submitted all required reports and queries over the previous 2-year time frame.

Attestation is an important part of the NPDB's mission to protect the public, enhance health care safety, and prevent fraud. Attestation helps to ensure that entities are meeting their reporting, querying, and confidentiality requirements, which helps other organizations make more informed hiring and credentialing decisions.

All information submitted to the NPDB is considered confidential. This information may not be disclosed except as specified in the NPDB statutes and regulations. The confidential receipt, storage, and disclosure of information are essential to NPDB operations.

Entities that fail to submit their required reports may be subject to the sanctions outlined in 45 CFR 60.

Compliance Review Process

In addition to attestation, state licensing boards are selected to participate in compliance reviews. We review publicly available data and compare actions the board took with submitted reports.

The review includes professions that hospitals and health care organizations query most often:

• Physicians
• Dentists
• Nurses
• Physician Assistants
• Social Workers

We also include a random sample of professions. All regulated health care professions are subject to review at the discretion of HRSA.