How Can I Know if Licensees in my State Have Been Disciplined in Other States?

Enforcement Newsletter

August 2013

There are two main ways to know if licensees from your state have been disciplined in other states:

1. Disciplinary Email Alerts

If your Board provides hashed data that links your licensees across state lines (which includes the last four digits of social security number and date of birth), then you are eligible to receive the ALD Disciplinary Email alerts. Recall that hashed data is one of the ALD Big Four. The disciplinary email alerts rely on hashed data to recognize the logic regarding whether a licensee is the same person in one state as a licensee in another state with the same name. Disciplinary email alerts are sent to EDs and designated Board Staff when a licensee has had their license suspended or revoked by another Board in a different jurisdiction.

2. Manual Searches

Regardless of whether your Board provides hashed data, at any time you can log into the ALD and perform a search for discipline. You can search by name, status, jurisdiction, or a broad search for all discipline across the nation. (Please allow a few minutes for that last type of search to process.)

*Tip: When searching by name, other state records that are linked will show under your search subject’s record. When looking for a certain individual or firm, we recommend allowing the system to search records in all states by keeping “any” selected in the state drop down list. This is extremely important in order to know with certainty that your search results are capturing all possible records for the search subject.

*Tip: If you’re looking for licensees with a particular status within a jurisdiction, you can use the state drop down menu and the status drop down menu to find what you’re looking for.

*Tip: If you would like to see a general list of all licensees in the country with disciplinary history, leave the name and license number fields blank and the state unselected. Then, check the box for enforcement, non-compliance or disciplinary action.

(The check box search results will show you any indication of disciplinary or non-compliance; that is, whether a state provided a status that would typically trigger a disciplinary alert (Suspended or Revoked) OR if the state provided some form of detail within the record detail page, on the tab all the way to the right.)

*Tip: You can sort by any one of the headers on the search results page. If you want to see licensees with discipline, click once on the Enforcement, Non-Compliance, or Disciplinary Actions header. That will sort all of the banners so that you can easily see which licensees have something to see in the disciplinary tab. The licensees that show “View Record for Details” will have some details in the disciplinary tab.