How to check a doctor's registration in India

Any patient can look up whether a doctor is on the medical register, for free, in about two minutes. Here is exactly how, and what the result does and does not prove.

In India, a person may practise modern medicine only if they hold a recognised medical qualification and are registered with a State Medical Council or the National Medical Commission. Registration is the single check that separates a doctor from someone calling themselves one, and it is the one check that is public, free and available to you directly.

You do not need to ask the clinic, and you do not need to trust a directory — including this one. You can read the register yourself.

What you need before you start

• The doctor’s full name as registered. This is often not the name on the clinic board. Registers hold the name as it appeared on the degree certificate, which may include initials, a fuller surname, or a different transliteration.
• Their registration number, if you have it. Clinics frequently print it on the prescription pad, the signboard, or the receipt. Searching by number is far more reliable than searching by name.
• The council that registered them — usually the state where they first registered after graduating, which is not necessarily the state they practise in today.

Looking a doctor up

The National Medical Commission publishes the national register of doctors holding recognised modern-medicine qualifications, at nmc.org.in. It aggregates entries supplied by the state medical councils. Search by registration number and council where you can; fall back to name search only when you must.

The NMC has been migrating this register onto a newer National Medical Register platform with identity-linked entries, so the exact search screen you land on may differ from the one described in older articles. Start at nmc.org.in and follow the register or search link from there rather than from a bookmarked deep link, which may be out of date.

Some state medical councils also publish their own searchable register, and a state register is sometimes more current than the national aggregate — a recent registration or a recent disciplinary action can appear with the council before it appears nationally. If the national search comes up empty for a doctor you have good reason to believe is registered, the state council is the second place to look.

Reading the result

A register entry typically shows:

• Name as registered. Small differences from the clinic’s spelling are common and usually mean nothing; a completely different name means you have the wrong entry.
• Registration number and council. Numbers are only unique within a council, so a number without its council is ambiguous — two doctors in different states can hold the same number.
• Year of registration. This is when they first joined that register, which is a reasonable proxy for how long they have been qualified. It is not the same as a renewal date, and the two are often confused: a profile claiming “registered 2018” for a doctor first registered in 1999 has usually picked up a renewal year.
• The qualification the council registered them on — usually the primary degree, sometimes with the university and year. Postgraduate and foreign qualifications may or may not appear.

What registration proves — and what it does not

It does not prove any of the following, and no register is designed to:

• That they are good at their job. Registration is a floor, not a ranking. It says qualified, not skilled, current, or right for you.
• That they hold the speciality they advertise. Many registers record only the primary qualification. A doctor listed with MBBS may well hold an MD; the register simply may not show it. Equally, a register entry showing only MBBS is not confirmation of a specialist’s postgraduate training — you would need the degree certificate or the awarding body for that.
• That the entry is current today. Registers are updated in batches. Several states require periodic renewal, and a lapsed renewal does not always show immediately.
• Anything about the clinic. Registration attaches to the person, not the premises. A registered doctor can work at an unregistered facility.

If you cannot find them

A blank result is a reason to ask, not a verdict. In order of likelihood: the name is spelled differently on the register; you are searching the wrong council; the entry has not been migrated to the platform you are searching; or the doctor practises a system of medicine that the NMC does not register at all (see below). Genuine absence — someone practising modern medicine with no registration anywhere — does happen, and is the reason this check is worth two minutes.

The straightforward next step is to ask the doctor or the clinic for the registration number and council. A registered doctor will have it to hand; in several states they are required to display it.

Doctors the NMC does not register

The NMC register covers modern medicine only. Practitioners of Ayurveda, Homoeopathy, Unani, Siddha and Yoga & Naturopathy are registered under separate statutory councils, and will not appear on the NMC register no matter how correctly you search. Dentists are registered separately again, with the Dental Council of India and its state counterparts. Physiotherapists, clinical psychologists, dietitians and audiologists fall under different arrangements again, some of which have no single national public register at all.

None of that makes such a practitioner unqualified. It means the check is a different check, against a different body.

How we use this

Every profile on this site shows what we have actually checked and when. Where we have confirmed a registration against the register, the profile says so and carries the date. Where we have not, it says that too, in plain words, rather than displaying a badge that means nothing. A profile that says a registration is unverified is telling you the truth about our work, not about the doctor — they may well be registered and we simply have not confirmed it yet.

If you check a doctor yourself and find something our profile gets wrong, tell us. Corrections to a profile are the fastest way this directory gets more accurate.

General guidance, not advice about your situation. Not for emergencies — call 108. Errors can be reported through the corrections process.