How it works
Verification, and the clock.
Two things make this directory different from the ones you've used. We check that people are who they say they are, and we take listings down when nobody confirms them. Here's exactly how both work, including what we can't do.
NPI matched
We match the name, credential, and taxonomy against the national NPI registry, which is public data maintained by CMS. It confirms the person and the discipline.
Practice email confirmed
A link goes to an address at the practice domain. Clicking it confirms the person works where the listing says they work. Where there's no practice domain, we confirm by phone instead and label it that way.
Website match
Where a practice website lists the clinician, we link it. It's a small thing and we show it as exactly what it is.
What we don't do is claim to have verified a license. There is no single national license database, licensing is run by more than fifty separate boards, and an NPI proves nothing about licensure. Saying "license verified" when we haven't checked would be a lie, so we don't say it.
Always verify licensure and credentials directly with the clinician and the relevant state board before making a referral. Every listing links to the board's own lookup for the states that clinician practices in. The full verification standard is here.
The clock
Two windows, and what happens at the end of each.
Availability goes stale much faster than the rest of a profile, so it gets its own, shorter window.
| What | Window | What happens at the end |
|---|---|---|
| Taking new patients | 90 days | The status drops to "needs confirmation" and stops showing as open in search |
| The whole profile | 180 days | The listing goes dormant, hidden from search and out of the search index |
| A dormant listing | 12 months | Restored in one click at any point. After a year it's removed for good |
One click, or one word
At day 150 we email three buttons: still taking patients, waitlist, or not right now. Replying to the email with the word "open" also works. Requiring a password is how every other directory ends up full of stale data.
Dormant, not deleted
We don't punish a clinician for a busy quarter. The page keeps its address and its history, it just stops appearing until somebody says it's still true.
Why we can promise this and the paid directories can't
It isn't that they're careless. It's structural. On a paid directory, the listing is the product they sell you, so removing a stale profile means losing revenue. Nobody builds a system whose main job is to delete their own inventory.
HandshakeMD is free, so a listing costs us nothing to remove. That single fact is what lets us say the thing nobody else can: if it's here, somebody confirmed it recently, and you can see the date.
What's in the index, and what isn't
We're building the national index from the public NPI registry, so most clinicians in the country have a page waiting to be claimed. Those unclaimed pages are deliberately kept out of search engines and out of our own search results until a clinician claims and confirms one. An unclaimed page isn't a listing, it's a placeholder, and treating it as a listing is how directories end up full of phone numbers that ring nowhere.
No patient information, ever
Nothing on HandshakeMD is built to carry patient information, and our terms prohibit posting it. Referrals happen the way they always have, by fax, by portal, by phone, or by the patient calling. We're the part that tells you who to call.
Ready to be listed?
About eight minutes, free permanently, and you can take it down whenever you want.