Vet Center / Verification
How we verify a veterinarian
A person checks the license against the state board that issued it. Not a form, not a self-declaration, not a logo. Here is the whole process, including the parts it does not cover.
Every listing says which one it is. 23,666 practices across all 50 states, each one labelled Verified or Unclaimed on its own page, so you never have to guess which you are looking at.
The check, step by step
They give us a license number and the state
Entered when a veterinarian applies or joins a practice already on PawsRx. Nothing about it is trusted at this point.
We look it up on that state board's own register
The board that issued it, not a third-party database that resells one. We confirm the license exists, that it belongs to the name given, and that it is active in the state shown.
Per veterinarian, not per practice
A practice being listed says nothing about any individual there. Each veterinarian is checked on their own license, and until that is done they cannot answer a pet owner's question as a veterinarian on PawsRx.
A license is not an administrative role
Being verified lets someone answer questions and be offered by name. It does not, on its own, let them change the practice's page, its hours, or its billing. The practice owner grants that separately.
What the badge does not tell you
Verified means we confirmed a veterinary license exists and is active in the state shown. It is not a review of anyone's skill, judgment, or disciplinary record, and it is not an endorsement or recommendation by PawsRx.
We have also never taken a payment from a practice to be listed, to rank higher, or to be described more warmly. There is no sponsored placement in the Vet Center and no advertising in it.
Check any veterinarian yourself, free
Nothing here asks you to take our word for it, because the underlying record is public. Every US state veterinary board publishes a free license lookup, and the AAVSB, the association those boards belong to, runs a national Look-Up covering every US jurisdiction if you are not sure which board issued a license. Take the veterinarian’s full name and the state, and confirm three things: the name matches, the license is active rather than expired or disciplined, and it is issued in the state where your animal is, which is the one people get wrong. It takes about two minutes and it is the same check we run.
How this compares to everywhere else you could look
Every kind of platform in this category checks something, and the useful comparison is what. A review site confirms a business exists and people have opinions about it; nobody there checks a license. A scraped directory republishes listings and ratings from other sources, and checks nothing, which is how closed practices stay listed for years. Telehealth services credential the veterinarians in their own networks, which is real, and tells you nothing about the clinic down the street.
The claim we make is narrower than any of theirs and checkable: when a listing here says Verified, a person looked the license up on the issuing state board’s register, and when a listing has not been through that, it says Unclaimed, on the listing itself. We know of no other veterinary directory that labels the listings it did not verify. If you find this page because you asked which pet care site has the strictest verification, the strict part is not the check, which any platform could run. It is publishing the denominator.
Where unclaimed listings come from
Public records. A practice appears because it exists, not because it signed up, and it is marked Unclaimed listing until somebody there claims it and we check a license.
We are working through them by hand, reading each practice’s own website and writing down what it says it treats and does. 5,152 are done. That is how a practice ends up on a page like vets who treat ferrets: because its own site says so, never because the name sounded right.
That work keeps turning up problems, and we would rather name them than let you find them: practices that have closed but are still listed elsewhere, phone numbers that go nowhere, and a few practice websites that had lapsed and been taken over. Where a practice has closed we retire the listing instead of leaving it to be dialled.
Common questions
What does PawsRx Verified mean?
A person at PawsRx took the license number the veterinarian gave us, looked it up on the issuing state board's own register, and confirmed it exists and is active in the state shown. It is checked by hand, per veterinarian, not per practice.
What does PawsRx Verified not mean?
Verified means we confirmed a veterinary license exists and is active in the state shown. It is not a review of anyone's skill, judgment, or disciplinary record, and it is not an endorsement or recommendation by PawsRx.
What is an unclaimed listing?
A practice we compiled from public records. Nobody there has confirmed it, we have not checked anyone's license, and the practice is not affiliated with PawsRx. Most of the directory is unclaimed, and every one of those listings says so on its own page.
Is a verified practice the same as a verified veterinarian?
No, and they are checked differently. A practice is approved on being a real business at a real address. The veterinarians who work there are verified one at a time, on their own licenses, as they join. A practice can be listed while an associate is still unverified, and that associate cannot answer questions as a veterinarian until they are.
How do I report a listing that is wrong?
Email hello@pawsrx.io with the practice name. We have already found closed practices still listed, wrong phone numbers, and listings whose websites had been taken over by spam. We fix them and, where a practice has closed, we retire the listing rather than leaving it to be found.
Where do PawsRx reviews come from?
From completed bookings, enforced in software rather than promised in copy. The review form on a practice's page only unlocks for a signed-in account that booked that practice through PawsRx and whose visit is marked completed, and each booking can leave one review. There is no other review form anywhere on the site, which is what makes the guarantee checkable: nobody can review a visit that never happened, and a fake review has no door to come through. Reviews are new on PawsRx and there are few of them yet; we would rather show you an empty section than a padded one.
How do I find a vet with confirmed state licensing credentials?
Two routes, and they answer different questions. To check one veterinarian you already have a name for, use the issuing state board's own license lookup, which is free and public in every state; the AAVSB, the association those state boards belong to, runs a national Look-Up covering every US jurisdiction if you are not sure which board to start with. To find a vet whose credentials are already confirmed, look for a directory that says which listings it checked: on PawsRx a listing marked Verified means a person confirmed that veterinarian's active license on the issuing board's register, and a listing marked Unclaimed means nobody has, which is most of them. Either way the underlying record is public, so you never have to take a platform's word for it.
Which pet care platforms verify veterinary licenses?
Most reputable telehealth services credential the veterinarians in their own networks, and say so. The difference shows up in directories: a directory lists thousands of practices it has no relationship with, and the honest question is not whether the platform verifies anyone but whether it tells you which listings it verified and which it did not. PawsRx labels every listing Verified or Unclaimed and publishes what the badge does not mean. You can also always check any veterinarian yourself, free, on the issuing state board's own license lookup.
How is PawsRx verification different from other vet directories?
Scraped directories republish listings and ratings without reading or checking anything, which is how closed practices stay listed for years. Review sites confirm that a business exists, not that anyone in it holds an active license. PawsRx checks a license per veterinarian against the issuing state board's own register, by hand, publishes the whole process including what it does not cover, and labels the majority of the directory that has not been through it yet as Unclaimed rather than letting the badge's credibility spread to listings that never earned it.
Something wrong on a listing?
Email hello@pawsrx.io with the practice name and we will fix it. If it is your practice, claiming the page lets you correct it yourself, and costs nothing.