Mission Impossible: Getting A Medical License In California
I first applied for a license to practice medicine in the state of California on July 9, 2008. I was licensed on March 3, 2011 — a whopping 967 days after they first received my application. I haven’t had a problem getting a license in any other state, and I am licensed in six of them. Just to give you a sense of how long it usually takes to process the paperwork for a medical license, Maryland completed mine in under three weeks. So what’s going on in California?
Dr. Val’s Experience
I think the best way to tell this story is with a timeline, and let the facts speak for themselves. I know this represents just one physician’s experience (namely mine), so results may vary:
July 9, 2008 – The Medical Board of California (MBC) received my licensure application and my checks for $493 (for fingerprint and processing fee) and $805 (initial licensing fee), which were cashed soon thereafter.
Sept 29, 2008 – I received a letter in the mail stating that there were four items missing from my application. Two of these four items were already included in the Federation Credentials Verification Service (FCVS) packet they had received from me. The other two items were requests for residency program directors to write letters to support the forms that they had already filled out on my behalf. I immediately requested these letters, and even though I should not have needed to send additional copies of items from the FCVS packet, I did so as well.
December 3, 2008 – I received a letter in the mail from the MBC, stating that there was an additional fee of $25 now required for physicians whose licensure applications were postmarked after December 31, 2008. This obviously didn’t relate to me, but the letter reminded me to follow up with the board to make sure that they had received the four items from the Sept 29th letter. I sent the licensing program administrator an email and left a voice message for follow-up purposes. He gave no response. Read more »
