BrooklynBrooklyn care, explained

New York checks

Whose name belongs in the search?

Start with the person assessing you, then the pharmacy supplying the medicine. A business name can be different from both.

Check the person’s license and conduct

Use the State Education Department’s Office of the Professions to check a New York license. This is the office responsible as of September 28, 2026.

The free search lists registered pharmacies along with pharmacists, nurses, physician assistants and doctors.

A physician assistant works in health care under a doctor’s supervision.

  • Get the person’s license number, profession and full name.
  • Match the name and profession in the state’s search.
  • Look at the status and any enforcement information.

For action against a doctor, check the health department

New York’s Department of Health keeps records of formal action against doctors and physician assistants for poor conduct. This is called a discipline record.

The Office of Professional Medical Conduct is the office to look for; its record is separate from the license search.

A doctor’s state profile contains information supplied by the doctor, so it is different from the state’s discipline record.

  • Read both the license result and the conduct result.
  • Ask the state office to clarify a record you do not understand.
  • Use a license result to check permission to practice, rather than as a rating of care.

For the medicine, get the pharmacy’s name

Find out the name of the pharmacy making or supplying your prescription medicine. Then use that name in the state search.

A pharmacy outside New York generally needs to register with New York before sending prescriptions to residents. It also needs permission to operate in its home state. These are the rules as of September 28, 2026.

New York may allow an exception for a pharmacy that sends 600 or fewer prescriptions into the state during a year.

If the pharmacy claims this exception, ask the State Education Department to confirm it before paying. You need not calculate that pharmacy’s annual prescription total yourself.

  • Get the full pharmacy name before paying.
  • Match the name on the prescription label to the name you checked.
  • Ask how to reach a pharmacist with access to your records.

If a concern becomes a complaint

  • Send complaints concerning doctors or physician assistants to New York’s Department of Health.
  • For a nurse, pharmacist or pharmacy, use the State Education Department.

These complaint routes reflect information from September 28, 2026.

  • Keep the names, dates and copies of what you were told.
  • For billing or health-plan problems, look for the Attorney General’s health-care complaint route.

New York’s Attorney General offers help with health-care billing and coverage complaints.