If you want to check a doctor’s background or a hospital’s safety record in Atlanta, public tools can show license status, disciplinary actions, and quality data. Our Atlanta medical malpractice lawyer can explain what those records mean for a potential claim. Moriarty Medical Malpractice Lawyers prepared this guide to walk through the main tools and what each one can and cannot tell you.
Check a Georgia Physician’s License
The Georgia Composite Medical Board’s Verify a Licensee tool lets you search physicians, physician assistants, and other board licensees. According to the board, the following information on the tool is primary source verification:
- License number and status
- The date the Georgia license was first issued and its expiration date
- Public orders issued by the board, or a note that there are none
- Job descriptions and supervising physicians for physician assistants
The same page links to a list of the medical malpractice insurance coverage that physicians have reported to the board.
The board’s physician profiles have limits. A 2020 state performance audit found that many profiles were missing information and that discipline was not always clearly described. If a profile seems incomplete, a public board order may contain more detail.
Search National Disciplinary History
A physician may hold licenses in more than one state. DocInfo, a free tool from the Federation of State Medical Boards, shows disciplinary actions by any state medical board, active licenses across states, specialty certification, and medical school information, as described in a 2025 FSBPT profile of the tool.
Check Other Licensed Providers
Not every provider is licensed by the medical board. Nurses are licensed by the Georgia Board of Nursing, and pharmacists by the Georgia Board of Pharmacy. When a concern involves a dispensing mistake, the pharmacy and pharmacist records can matter in pharmacy malpractice and medication error claims.
Review Hospital Quality and Safety Data
- Medicare Care Compare. This federal tool lets you compare quality ratings and other data for hospitals, nursing homes, and doctors.
- Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade. This nonprofit assigns letter grades to most general hospitals based on preventable errors, injuries, and infections. Grades are updated each spring and fall, and some hospitals were listed as “Grade Not Assigned” in spring 2026, according to Leapfrog’s FAQ.
Families can use these tools to compare hospitals before planned care, such as giving birth or a scheduled procedure. Hospital-wide ratings describe a facility’s overall performance. They do not show what happened in any one patient’s care, which is the question in hospital negligence claims. Our overview of Atlanta hospitals covers the major facilities serving the area.
How to Report a Concern
- Physicians and other board licensees. File a complaint with the Georgia Composite Medical Board. The board handles concerns about care that fell below the minimum standard, but it does not handle complaints about hospitals.
- Hospitals and other licensed facilities. File a complaint with the Department of Community Health’s Healthcare Facility Regulation Division.
- Accredited organizations. Report a patient safety concern to The Joint Commission, which reviews how accredited organizations meet its standards.
These agencies can investigate and take action against a license or facility. They do not award compensation, and a complaint is separate from a legal claim.
What This Research Can and Cannot Tell You
A clean license record does not mean a provider has never made an error, and a disciplinary action does not by itself prove malpractice in your case. Board discipline is rare. The 2020 audit found that fewer than 2% of cases the Georgia board closed in fiscal year 2020 resulted in formal discipline. Our page of malpractice statistics collects more of this data.
Whether your care was negligent depends on your records, not on a provider’s overall history. A physician with a clean record can still miss a diagnosis, as in many failure to diagnose claims. Our guide to the first steps after malpractice explains what to do if you believe your care fell short.
Talk With Our Attorneys
Moriarty Medical Malpractice Lawyers represents patients and families in Atlanta and nearby communities, including Stonecrest. Contact us to schedule a free consultation.
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