How To Do a License Verification With a Background Check

In today’s social and professional climate, there are many individuals claiming to be licensed professionals when in fact, they’re not. A professional license indicates that a person has met the minimum requirements in order to enter a practice or have a professional title.

Why verify licenses or certificates? You would have without a doubt watched some sort of news report where certain individuals have been exposed for working as and impersonating either health care professionals, lawyers, or even babysitters. It can get very ugly, very quickly.

In order to avoid this, you can check your doctor’s credentials, or your babysitter’s CPR license to make sure that they are in fact who they say they are and have the correct qualifications to take your or your child’s wellbeing into their hands. A background check will grant you the professional license verification you need to keep your mind at ease.

What Can You Find on a Professional License Verification Check?

Now that you know why you may want to verify licenses or certificates, let’s find out what information you can find when checking the authenticity of a license.

License Type Obtained

Unfortunately, quite a few professionals have been known to stretch the extent of their knowledge. With a professional license verification, you can find out exactly what type of certification the professional has, and which institution or board issued that same license. Sometimes, the background check service in question will also contact the issuing board in order to verify this information.

Dates of Issue and Expiration

Whilst some people really do have the qualifications they claim to, they can be negligent enough to allow them to expire. You wouldn’t want that type of professional to take your case into their hands. A background check will inform you when the professional license was issued and whether it has expired or not.

License Restriction and Condition

It’s not enough to just check whether someone has a professional license. You also need to check as to whether that license has any restrictions or conditions that are imposed on the license in order to make sure that they’re not taking on more than they can handle.

Disciplinary Measures

Find out whether or not there have been disciplinary measures taken against the individual in question. This can be quite important for you to determine if they’re the right fit for you.

Not sure which licenses you can verify in a background check? They include, but are not restricted to:

• Accountants
• Acupuncturists
• American Academy of Professional Coders
• American Board of Internal Medicine
• Chiropractic License
• Dietetics and Nutrition Practice
• Doctors License
• FCC
• Airplane Mechanics
• FAA Air Plane Radio Verification
• Insurance Commissioners
• Medical Assistants
• Medical Coders
• Medical Examiners
• Nurse License
• Occupational Therapist
• Pharmacy license
• Optometry License
• Physical Therapist License
• Physicians Assistants
• Principals
• School-Related Occupations
• Radiology Technicians
• Real Estate Brokers
• Respiratory Therapist
• Surgical Technologists

In order to check the status of a license, you will need the license number of the professional you would like to check. If you do not have this information, you will also be able to enter their first and last name, the type of license held as well as the name or the address of the particular business that is associated with the license.

Remember that some professionals can occasionally be licensed under a different name than what is presented professionally. If you cannot find the person in question, try entering their full name or their first and last names separately.

If you still cannot find someone, you can ask them their license number directly. This should not be an issue as the information is public record anyway. If you find the person resisting, this should raise a few red flags.

Top Background Checks for License Verifications

The best way to get your hands on a professional license verification is through an online background check service that will come up with an array of information on the individual.

BeenVerified

This background check service provides quality information in its reports, and take the confusion out of accessing public records. Scouring millions of records, users are provided with accurate information on their secure website.

This New York-based company is one of the most affordable background check services available at the moment with two subscription offers available. A one-month membership will set you back $22.86 per month with the three-month membership saving you 35%, priced at $14.86.

Your membership benefits include unlimited background checks, contact information, phone lookups, address lookups, criminal records as well as four different ways to search for information. An added benefit of BeenVerified is that you can also choose to be notified if any of the information within a report changes at any time.

In terms of payment, you can choose to be billed via your credit card, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Venmo or Amazon Pay.

The thing about public records is, whilst they might be public, they are often difficult to find and can be scattered around various corporate or government entities. The great thing about BennVerified is that they employ court runners top dig up any analog records which haven’t yet been digitized.

There is a free iOS and Android app that is available. Additionally, should you need any help with your searches, there is a responsive and knowledgeable customer service team on hand to help you out 24/7. All you need to do is contact them via their toll-free number.

BeenVerified is also quite active on social media with Facebook and Twitter accounts that are regularly updated with any service outages or problems that you might encounter on their website and when you might expect those problems to be resolved.

One of the highlights about BeenVerified is that it will produce a report that is incredibly simple to understand, allowing users to quickly skim through various sections of the report before delving into specific sections. There are also added explanations of any included technical terms so that you can better understand the report.

Find out more about BeenVerified here.

TruthFinder

TruthFinder is one of the few background check services that use its technology to search the deep web, the part of the internet which isn’t normally accessible by standard search engines, in order to come up with difficult-to-find information which might not come up in regular reports.

This means you will have access to all the online activities of your subject including online accounts, shopping profiles, blogging platforms as well as anything they might have gone to great lengths to disguise.

Whilst it comes up with hard to find information, the website itself is very simple to use. All you need to do is enter the name and surname of the individual in question and wait for the results.

You can run five different types of searches including:

• Background search
• People search
• Social network search
• Criminal record search
• Reverse phone lookup

You will be able to choose from two different types of reports including standard and premium, with the latter coming at an added cost. A standard report will come up with information including:

• Name
• Age
• Known relatives
• Known aliases
• Address history
• Known phone numbers
• Relationship status

A premium report will provide you with the information found in a standard report as well as the following:

• Civil and criminal judgments
• Foreclosures
• Tax liens
• Traffic violations
• Arrest records
• Sex offender data
• Bankruptcies
• Professional information
• Real estate information
• Associated companies and business organizations

TruthFinder has access to hundreds of millions of records including state, federal, county, local databases, professional association databases, licensing databases as well as criminal and civil court data, however, it doesn’t have access to commercial records like marketing data.

There is a blog on the TruthFinder website called Infomania, which is complete with loads of educational information as well as many tips and tricks as to how to stay safe online. There is also a range of FAQs and YouTube instructional videos available. You can always get in touch with the customer service team via social media or give them a call on their toll-free number.

There is a free mobile app that you can download on your Android or iOS device and there are two subscription options available, including the one-month subscription which costs $27.78 or the three-month subscription for $23.02.

It should be noted that because TruthFinder completes such a thorough search, your report might take a little longer than other online searches. However, it will be well worth the wait considering the depth of information you will obtain.

Find out more about Truthfinder here.

PeopleLooker

Although other online background check services are known to confuse users with too many options, PeopleLooker keeps things simple, with an easy to use website and a quick turnaround on the information. PeopleLooker is fast. Exceptionally fast. Searching through billions of records, you can expect your preliminary report to be ready within two minutes, while the complete report will be ready for downloading within just five.

One-Month memberships with PeopleLooker are priced at $18.28, with the three-month option allowing for a saving of 30% costing just $14.62 per month. There are various reports on offer including:

• Background search
• People search
• Criminal records search
• Reverse phone lookup
• Reverse email lookup
• Reverse property search

The reverse lookups are only available on the mobile application, but you can expect a standard report to include information like:

• Criminal records
• Traffic violations
• Sex offender information
• Name and known aliases
• Current phone number
• Social media information
• Public photos

An extra payment will supply you with additional information:

• Professional licenses
• Tax liens
• Bankruptcy proceedings
• Marriage and divorce records
• Court judgments

The helpful customer service task can be reached seven days a week via telephone, but if you prefer not to speak to someone directly you can always submit a ticket or send an email. PeopleLooker is also active on social media and there is a comprehensive FAQ section which includes detailed information that is laid out clearly.

Conclusion

Back in the day, dealing with a professional was as simple as taking their expertise. Unfortunately, since then, things have changed a great deal, with many people opting to leave out information regarding their education or professional status in order to get ahead.

When you are dealing with a health professional or leaving your child to be looked after someone that is not familiar to you, it should be done with peace of mind. Using a background check to verify a professional license is the best way to do so.