Top 10 Medical Board Disciplinary Action Types by Frequency
PlainDiscipline ranks state medical board disciplinary action types by total occurrence count across the registry, using the action_types aggregate.
Research period:
Research question
Across the catalogue of disciplinary action types that state medical boards can impose on licensed physicians, from administrative warnings through license revocations, which action types appear most frequently in the public record, and what does the distribution reveal about state board enforcement patterns?
Methodology
Every number on this page is pulled live from PlainDiscipline's current dataset at the moment you load it, ranked from highest to lowest and limited to the top 10. Nothing here is a hardcoded or cached figure: when the underlying FSMB Action Type Taxonomy dataset is refreshed, this page reflects the new numbers automatically.
Values are shown in the units and precision published by Federation of State Medical Boards. Where the source reports figures in thousands or millions, we scale them for readability; where the source reports raw counts, we preserve them with standard thousand-separators. Records with a missing or zero value on the ranking metric are excluded rather than shown as artificial zeros, and Federation of State Medical Boards occasionally withholds values for confidentiality, small-sample, or quality-control reasons, those records are omitted by design, not displayed as misleading zeros.
Federation of State Medical Boards publishes the FSMB Action Type Taxonomy on its own release schedule; when a new release lands, PlainDiscipline updates this ranking automatically without any change to this page. If the agency later revises a published value, the revision flows through the same way. See the methodology page for the full source vintage and refresh history.
Outliers are shown as published, not silently smoothed or clipped, so readers can judge them in context via the source link. Where the source changes its reporting period, column definitions, or coverage scope between releases, we note it on the methodology page rather than blending incompatible vintages into one ranking.
PlainDiscipline maintains an editorial standards process for how rankings are built, how outliers are handled, and how disputed values are corrected. The byline at the top of this page names the editorial owner accountable for its framing. Every figure traces back to the original Federation of State Medical Boards record via the citation below, so independent verification never requires anything beyond the public source. Corrections, takedowns, or clarifications can be requested through the contact channels in the site footer.
Top 10 Medical Board Disciplinary Action Types by Frequency
Live data, updated automatically as the source dataset is revised
Which States File "License Revocation or Suspension" Most Often
Live data, updated automatically as the source dataset is revised
The ranked top 10
Every row below reflects PlainDiscipline's current dataset (10 rows shown). When the source is refreshed, this table updates automatically.
| # | Action type | Total count | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | License Revocation or Suspension | 33,327 | Had license to provide health care revoked or suspended by a state licensing authority, or surrendered license while a formal disciplinary proceeding was pending. |
| 2 | Conviction: Program-Related Crime | 25,916 | Convicted of a criminal offense related to the delivery of an item or service under Medicare, Medicaid, or other state health care program. |
| 3 | Conviction: Patient Abuse or Neglect | 8,090 | Convicted of a criminal offense relating to neglect or abuse of patients in connection with the delivery of a health care item or service. |
| 4 | Conviction: Healthcare Fraud | 5,842 | Convicted of a felony relating to fraud, theft, embezzlement, breach of fiduciary responsibility, or other financial misconduct in a health care program. |
| 5 | Conviction: Controlled Substance | 3,585 | Convicted of a felony relating to the unlawful manufacture, distribution, prescription, or dispensing of a controlled substance. |
| 6 | Managed Care Default | 2,158 | Default on health education loan or scholarship obligations, or default by managed care entity on contractual obligations. |
| 7 | Entity Controlled by Sanctioned Individual | 1,488 | Entity owned or controlled by an individual who has been excluded, or who has a specified ownership or control interest in a sanctioned entity. |
| 8 | Misdemeanor: Healthcare Fraud | 941 | Convicted of a misdemeanor relating to fraud, theft, embezzlement, or other financial misconduct in a health care program. |
| 9 | Exclusion or Debarment by Federal Agency | 806 | Suspended or debarred under federal or state law from participating in any federal or state procurement or non-procurement program. |
| 10 | Fraud, Kickbacks, or Prohibited Activities | 741 | Committed an act described in the anti-kickback statute, Stark law, or engaged in other prohibited referral or billing practices. |
Source: Federation of State Medical Boards, FSMB Action Type Taxonomy. Figures are pulled from PlainDiscipline's current dataset and update automatically when the source is refreshed.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The top-ranked record in this dataset is License Revocation or Suspension, with a value of 33,327 on the Total count column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. No number on this page is hardcoded, when Federation of State Medical Boards publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record (33,327) and the 10th-ranked record (741) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.
Source provenance
The records in this ranking originate from Federation of State Medical Boards, specifically the FSMB Action Type Taxonomy. PlainDiscipline ingests the source vintage published by the agency and serves it from its current dataset, there is no static export carrying stale numbers, and a newly published source vintage propagates to this page automatically. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and how the figures are compiled.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.
What this analysis cannot tell us
State medical boards use different vocabulary for what are substantively similar disciplinary actions, one state's 'reprimand' may be another state's 'censure' or 'admonishment'. This aggregation normalizes the most common action types into a unified taxonomy, but residual classification ambiguity remains. The action_types table excludes some board-specific procedural actions (board orders, settlement agreements) that do not map cleanly to the cross-state taxonomy. Frequency ranking treats every recorded action equally, a fine and a license revocation count as one action each, even though their severity and impact on the physician's practice differ substantially. Readers seeking severity-weighted rankings should consult the serious_actions column on the per-state ranking.
Sources
- Federation of State Medical Boards, Glossary of Actions - https://www.fsmb.org/policy/advocacy-policy/policies/