Verifying a doctor's registration before a locum
How a Nigerian clinic checks a doctor's MDCN registration before a locum shift or a new hire, and what to record before the first payment goes out.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Healthcare businesses in Nigeria
It is Friday afternoon and the clinic's weekend doctor has called in sick. A colleague recommends someone who can cover: a doctor they trained with, available from tomorrow morning. The medical director is relieved, agrees a rate on the phone, and the new doctor starts seeing patients on Saturday. Nobody has checked their registration.
Most of the time, that works out. But the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) takes the risk of unqualified and sanctioned practitioners seriously enough to publish lists warning the public about them. A clinic that lets an unverified doctor see patients is exposed if anything goes wrong. This article sets out the checks MDCN makes available, what to look for, and what a clinic should record before it pays a locum or a new hire for the first time.
The register check and primary-source verification
MDCN states that its mission is to regulate the practice of Medicine, Dentistry and Alternative Medicine in Nigeria. Its website lets the public confirm a doctor's registration status, and MDCN also offers primary-source verification of practitioners.
The difference matters. A quick check of registration status on the website tells you whether the name and details you were given match a registered doctor. Primary-source verification is a confirmation from MDCN itself, which suits a permanent hire, a senior appointment, or any case where something about the doctor's account does not quite add up.
For every new doctor, locum or permanent:
- Get their full name as registered and their MDCN registration details.
- Check their status on MDCN's website before their first shift.
- Compare what you find with their identity document and their CV.
- For permanent or senior roles, request primary-source verification.
- Record the date of each check and who made it.
Sanctioned and quack lists
MDCN publishes the Code of Medical Ethics in Nigeria, a sanctioned doctors list and a quack doctors list. Check both lists for every new doctor. A doctor who is registered may still be under a sanction that restricts what they may do.
MDCN's website also lets the public report suspected quack personnel, schools or hospitals, and its online complaint form against a doctor asks the complainant to attach an affidavit. If your checks turn up something that suggests a person is not who they say, that is the route MDCN provides. The MDCN website is where the registration check, the published lists and the reporting routes are found.
Good standing, and temporary or limited registration
MDCN offers practitioners an annual licence or a life licence, and issues certificates of good standing, alongside provisional, full and temporary or limited registration. Each of these tells you something:
- Registration type. A doctor with provisional registration, or temporary or limited registration, may not be suited to working alone on a weekend shift. Check that the type of registration fits the role.
- Licence. Ask for the current licence. If it is an annual licence, check the year.
- Certificate of good standing. For a senior appointment, or a doctor recently arrived from another state or country, asking for a certificate of good standing is a sensible extra step.
Locum as supplier or as employee
How you pay the doctor depends on how they are engaged, and that decision is worth taking deliberately rather than by habit. A locum who invoices the clinic for sessions is usually treated as a supplier; a doctor on the clinic's staff is an employee on payroll. The tax and employment consequences differ, so agree the arrangement with your accountant, and see before a Nigerian business pays its first employee if this is your first hire. Paying a doctor a share of fees rather than a fixed rate is covered in paying an associate doctor a share of fees.
On Achekam:
- A locum paid as a supplier goes on the business's supplier list. There is one list per business, with duplicate checks by name or VAT number, and quotations, orders and bills pick suppliers from it, so the same doctor is not set up twice under slightly different names.
- A doctor employed by the clinic is added as an employee, one by one, or imported from a CSV file; the import checks every row and writes all rows or none.
A second person checks the bank details
A wrong or altered bank account is one of the easiest ways for a first payment to a new doctor to go astray, whoever is at fault. For employees, Achekam builds in a control: an employee's bank account entered or changed by one person must be verified by another person before it is paid in the payment schedule or bank file.
For a locum paid as a supplier, apply the same discipline yourself. Have one person capture the bank details and a second person confirm them directly with the doctor, by phone on a number you already hold, before the first payment. Treat any later request to change the account the same way.
Filing the verification with the doctor's record
Achekam's Document Centre is a folder-based store where a clinic can keep a folder for each doctor. Put in it:
- the screenshot or printout of the MDCN registration check, dated;
- the result of checking the sanctioned and quack lists;
- any primary-source verification or certificate of good standing;
- a copy of the current licence and identity document;
- the signed locum agreement or employment contract.
When the licence is renewed, upload the new one as a new version; the earlier ones are kept. Achekam does not check MDCN registrations itself; it holds the evidence of the checks your clinic made.
Before Saturday's shift
Make the check a rule that cannot be skipped: no doctor sees a patient until their registration has been checked on MDCN's website, both lists have been searched, and the result is in their folder. It takes far less time than explaining afterwards why it was not done.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
