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Frequently Asked Questions
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For Health Care Professionals...
Self-Query
General Self-Query
- I am applying for licensure. How do I order a Self-Query?
- What is a Self-Query?
- What is the difference between an individual and an organization Self-Query?
- What is the quickest way to receive my Self-Query response?
- My Self-Query results stated 'No Reports Found' - what does this mean?
- What is reported to the NPDB?
- What if I need a Self-Query response from both the NPDB and the HIPDB?
- How long is my Self-Query response available?
- I am under 18. How do I submit a Self-Query?
- Can I submit a Self-Query on someone other than myself?
- What if the name on my Self-Query response doesn't match the name I use?
- What is the status of my Self-Query?
- I have multiple licenses; which one should I include?
- What should I do if my Self-Query response is blank when I view it?
- What is a report disclosure history?
Certified Self-Query
- What is a certified Self-Query response?
- What if a licensing board is asking for paper Self-Query?
- How do I download my certified Self-Query response?
- How do I view the digital certificate on my Self-Query response?
- How do I send my certified Self-Query response to a state licensing board?
- Why can't I see the certification information when I open the Self-Query response file?
- What are the benefits of a certified Self-Query response?
Self-Query Mailed Results
- What is Certified Mail?
- I ordered a paper Self-Query response, how do I change the address it will be mailed to?
- I opened my mailed Self-Query order by mistake; what should I do?
- How long will it take to receive a Self-Query by mail?
- Can you mail or email my Self-Query results directly to a state licensing board?
- What happens if nobody is available to sign for my Self-Query paper response?
- How is the paper copy of my Self-Query delivered?
- How can I track my Self-Query delivery?
- What should I do if my paper Self-Query never arrived?
Check Your Report
- What to Do After Receiving an NPDB Report Notification
- What is an NPDB report?
- What is the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB)?
- Can I have my report changed or removed?
- What are my options if I want to respond to a report?
- When do reports expire in the NPDB?
- Who can view my report?
- What do I do with a letter addressed to a deceased practitioner?
- My information (e.g., date of birth, name, sex, state license number) is wrong on my report; how can I have this corrected?
- I am applying for jobs while awaiting a dispute decision on my report. If a hiring company sees the report, how will they know that I am disputing it?
- The entity that reported me submitted the report more than 30 days after they took their action. Does that mean they should not have reported it to the NPDB?
- I have supporting documentation to prove this report is wrong; may I send it to the NPDB?
- Why did I receive notice of a Correction Report? What is this, and what changed?
- Why did I receive another notice of a Revision-to-Action Report? What is a Revision-to-Action Report?
Personal Account
General Personal Account
- How do I complete my personal account profile?
- How do I update my personal account information?
- How do I manage my personal account subscription?
- How do I manage notification settings in my personal account?
- How do I deactivate my personal account?
- How do I view the order history in my personal account?
- How do I know if the NPDB has reports about me?
- Why is the NPDB requiring Identity Verification?
- What if I don't have a Social Security Number to verify my identity with ID.me?
- I received an error message on ID.me. What does it mean?
Billing
For Organizations...
Accounts & Sign In
General Accounts & Sign In
- How do I recover my Data Bank ID (DBID)?
- I am locked out of my account; how can I get back in?
- How do I change my name on my user account?
- What is a Data Bank ID, or DBID?
60-Day Reactivation
MFA & ID Verification
- I'm receiving an error message on ID.me. What does it mean?
- Why is the NPDB requiring Identity Verification?
- What do I do if I have a duplicate ID.me account?
- I've already verified my identity with ID.me, why is NPDB prompting me to verify again?
- What is multi-factor authentication, or MFA?
- I have more than one NPDB user account. How do I link them so I can sign in to one account with multi-factor authentication, or MFA?
- How do I use multi-factor authentication, or MFA, to sign in to the NPDB?
- When signing in to my NPDB account, I receive a "Can't be reached" or "xms.hhs.gov took too long to respond" timeout error. How do I stop this from happening?
Querying
- What is the difference between One-Time Query and Continuous Query?
- How much does it cost to query the NPDB?
- How can I use Continuous Query?
- How do I activate/deactivate Continuous Query?
- How do I submit a query on a new subject?
- What data fields are required to submit a query?
- I submitted my query a couple of hours ago; why haven't I received the response?
- May I share my organization's query response if we have a written consent from the queried practitioner?
- What should I do if I see a blank page when I try to download my query response?
- If I entered something wrong on my query, how do I correct it?
- How can I get an XLS spreadsheet with all of my practitioners currently enrolled in Continuous Query?
- How do I get a Continuous Query enrollment with today's date?
- What is a pending query?
- Can I use Continuous Query on my credentialing software?
- How often should I update the information on an enrolled subject of a Continuous Query?
- Does my organization have to maintain its own querying records?
Billing & Fees
- What methods of payment does the NPDB accept?
- How do I request a refund?
- How do I reconcile a payment?
- How do I query for multiple practitioners with one bank charge?
- How do I redeem my query credits?
- My agent is being issued query credits for transactions they submitted on behalf of my organization. How will they be using these credits?
Reporting
- What actions are reported to the NPDB?
- How do I submit a report?
- How do I modify a report?
- I am submitting a report - what is the difference between the "Date action was taken" and the "Date action became effective"?
- What do I Include in the narrative section when submitting a report?
- Does the subject have a license for the selected profession or field of licensure?
- What is the difference between a Correction Report and a Revision-to-Action Report?
Subject Database
- What is a subject database?
- How do I import information from my own system into my NPDB subject database?
- I entered a subject into my subject database; why am I not able to query them?
Registration
- How do I register my organization with the NPDB?
- Is there a cost to register with the NPDB?
- What is an Eligible Entity?
- What is the difference between an Authorized Agent and Eligible Entity?
- What is the status of my registration?
- How do I make a correction to my registration form?
- What is a formal peer review process?
- How often do I have to renew my organization's registration?
- May I upload my registration documents?
- What is an Other Health Care Entity?
- Can I use a P.O. Box as an address when registering my organization?
- I am unable to have my documents notarized in-person, do you accept remote online notarization?
Changing Administrators
- How do I become the administrator for my organization if I don't have a user account and the administrator left my organization?
- I have a user account but I need to become the administrator for my organization?
- I am the administrator of my organization's account and I am leaving my organization. How do I create a new user account for my replacement?
Authorized Agents
- How do I designate an agent to submit queries or reports to the NPDB on behalf of my health care organization?
- How do I update or deactivate a designated agent's information?
Attestation
- What is attestation?
- When do I attest?
- After I submitted my attestation, I identified actions that need to be reported. What should I do?
- I use an agent for querying and reporting to the NPDB. How does this affect my organization's attestation?
- My organization did not take any reportable actions, do I attest?
- My organization did not run any queries, do I attest?
- I am an agent, how do I attest?
Self-Query and Reports for Organizations
- How to get an organizational Self-Query?
- What is the status of my Organizational Self-Query?
- Why was my Organizational Self-Query rejected?
- I received a letter in the mail about my organization. How do I view the report?
- How do I cancel my Self-Query?
- How do I find my Account ID?
Other Topics
Credentialing Software
- How can we test our Querying and Reporting XML Service (QRXS) eXtensible Markup Language (XML) files?
- How can we test our eXtensible Markup Language (XML) subject database import files before live submission?
- Is there a particular validator that you recommend?
- Can imported practitioner information be marked as incomplete even after validation by an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) validator prior to import?
- My QRXS transaction was rejected with an error of V1 (Missing or invalid Vendor ID). What does that mean?
- How often will there be changes to the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) format, and will we be notified in advance of such changes?
- I am having a technical problem, and we use a credentialing/third party system. What do I do?
Public Use Data File
- What is the Public Use Data File (PUF)?
- How often is the Public Use Data File updated?
- How do I obtain data on specific occupations and actions from the Public Use Data File?
- Is NPDB information available to the public?
- What type of information does the NPDB contain about health care practitioners?
- Does the NPDB include all lawsuits filed against health care practitioners?
- Are entities such as hospitals included in the MMPRs within the NPDB?
- How detailed is the information on physician specialties?
- Does the NPDB collect information on the race of health care practitioners?
- Can researchers access confidential variables not included in the public use file (PUF)?
- Why does the NPDB not fulfill all data requests from researchers?
- How prevalent is the use of National Provider Identifiers (NPIs) in NPDB reports?
- Is NPDB data specifically designed for research purposes?
- Can researchers use NPDB data to identify trends in health care practitioner behavior over time?
- Why are certain fields in NPDB data not consistently populated across reports?
