The disciplinary flag

1,462 active credentials carry a disciplinary flag — 0.3% of the register — and 1,947 carry one marked pending.

What the published file actually contains

One column, with three possible values: No, Yes, Pending. That is the whole of it. No reason, no date, no case number, no document, no indication of severity, and no indication of whether the matter is closed.

So « Yes » can mean an agreed undertaking about paperwork, and it can mean something serious. The file does not distinguish them, and neither can we.

Why no page here names anyone

Every page on this site publishes the count for a group and stops there. The flag appears on a single record when you look that credential up, and that record has no address of its own: it is drawn in your browser from the part of the URL after the #, which is never sent to a server and cannot be indexed.

The reason is not delicacy, it is accuracy. Publishing « action: yes » against a named person, with no reason attached, states a suspicion in the grammar of a fact. A search engine would then rank that page against that person’s name, permanently, on the strength of one boolean.

And note what the flag does not stop: every credential counted here is active. Whatever happened, the Department has not stopped these people practising.

Where the real record is

The Department of Health holds certified copies of legal disciplinary actions taken after July 1998 and publishes them through its own Provider Credential Search. For actions before July 1998 it asks that you call its Customer Service Center on 360-236-4700. If a decision about a person depends on this, that is where to go — not here, and not to any other copy of the file.

The absence of information in the Provider Credential Search system doesn’t imply any recommendation, endorsement or guarantee of competence of any healthcare professional. The presence of information in this system doesn’t imply a provider isn’t competent or qualified to practice.

Not a consumer reporting agency. This site and the datasets sold from it are not consumer reports under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and must not be used to decide anyone's eligibility for employment, credit, insurance, housing, or any other purpose covered by the FCRA. If you need a background check, use a screening company that operates as a consumer reporting agency.