NPDB: Who Can Report and Query?

Entity Type	Report	Query
Hospitals	Required	Required
Health plans	Required	Optional
Health care entities with formal peer review	Required	Optional
Medical malpractice payers	Required	Not Authorized
State licensing and certification agencies	Required	Optional
State agencies administering or supervising state programs	Required	Optional
State law enforcement agencies or fraud control units	Required	Optional
Federal licensing and certification agencies	Required	Optional
Agencies administering federal health care programs	Required	Optional
Federal law enforcement officials and agencies	Required	Optional
Professional societies with formal peer review	Required	Optional
Peer review organizations	Required	Not Authorized
Private accreditation organizations	Required	Not Authorized
Quality improvement organizations	Not Authorized	Optional

Federal law regulates who can either query, report, or both. Each organization that registers with the NPDB is responsible for determining its eligibility.
Hospitals are mandated by federal law to query the NPDB. Other health care entities (marked as "Optional") generally may query the NPDB, but are not required to by federal law.
Practitioners may submit a Self-Query, but cannot report or query on other practitioners.

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