National Practitioner Databank

keywords:  credentialing and privileging process, hospital employment, new hire, hospital practice, malpractice insurance, adverse events

The National Practitioner Databank (NPDB) and the credentialing process

What is the NPDB?
The National Practitioner Databank tracks info on health care providers including malpractice insurance and reported adverse events.  It is standard practice in the process of hiring and credentialing a health care practitioner at a hospital to query the NPDB.  Just as background checks are standard practice.

How does it relate to or affect you?
Every health care provider who works in a medical center has an entry as a practitioner in the NPDB.
You can learn more about it and see an infographic at the NPDB website.  If you want to see what your entry looks like or if you have an adverse report, you can do a self-query.

There used to be two data banks which credentialers would have to check for a health care practitioner, the NPDB and the HIPDB.  As of May 2013, the HIPDB has been rolled into the NPDB to streamline the databank and query process.

related:  HIPDB