How to File a Complaint Against a Doctor or Hospital, by State

There are four doors, and the right one depends on what happened, not on how badly it hurt. Discrimination, meaning you were treated worse than another patient would have been because of who you are, is a civil rights matter and goes to the federal government. A clinician who was incompetent, impaired, dishonest, sexually inappropriate or abusive goes to the state medical board that holds their license. A hospital that failed as an institution goes to the state agency that licenses hospitals. And an emergency department that would not examine or stabilize you goes to the federal EMTALA process through that same state agency. You can use more than one door for the same event, and often should.

Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, 42 U.S.C. 18116, prohibits discrimination "on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex" in any health program or activity that receives federal financial assistance, which covers nearly every hospital, most clinics, Medicaid and Medicare plans, and Marketplace insurers. The HHS Office for Civil Rights enforces it under the same mechanisms as the Civil Rights Act (45 CFR 92.301), and its complaint rules, at 45 CFR 80.7, say "a complaint must be filed not later than 180 days from the date of the alleged discrimination," a deadline OCR can extend for good cause. The same regulation forbids retaliation: no provider may "intimidate, threaten, coerce, or discriminate against any individual" for filing or taking part in a complaint.

File through the OCR Complaint Portal at hhs.gov/ocr, by mail, fax or email. OCR's own page says a complaint must be in writing, must "name the health care or social service provider involved, and describe the acts or omissions," and must "be filed within 180 days of when you knew that the act or omission complained of occurred." Language assistance is free. What makes a 1557 complaint work is specificity: what was done or withheld, what a differently situated patient got, who said what, and any document (a chart note, a discharge paper, a denial letter) that shows it. Pain that was dismissed, a translator that was refused, a security guard called on a family member, a transfer that was not offered to you but was to the next bed: these are the facts OCR investigates.

Every state licenses physicians through a board that investigates complaints from the public and can reprimand, fine, restrict, suspend or revoke a license. Boards look at competence, conduct, prescribing, boundaries, record-keeping and honesty; most do not resolve billing disputes or bad outcomes without negligence. We opened each board's complaint page on October 27 and 28, 2026. The table links the page and the form, gives the phone, and quotes what the board says about anonymous complaints: 15 say yes, several say a signature is required, and most warn that an anonymous complaint is harder to investigate. The same table gives the agency that licenses hospitals, for the third door.

Hospitals answer to the state agency that licenses them, usually a division of the health department, and that agency investigates complaints about care, staffing, safety, discharges, patient rights and infection control. If the hospital is accredited by the Joint Commission, it also takes patient safety complaints at jointcommission.org and can require a response. For a nursing home or a dialysis center the same state agency applies, and CMS's Care Compare lists the facility's inspection history. Ask the hospital for its patient advocate or patient relations office at the same time; the law requires hospitals to have a grievance process and to answer in writing.

Under EMTALA, 42 U.S.C. 1395dd, a Medicare-participating hospital with an emergency department must "provide for an appropriate medical screening examination" to anyone who asks, must stabilize an emergency condition or transfer you properly, and "may not delay provision of an appropriate medical screening examination" to ask about payment or insurance. A person harmed by a violation may "in a civil action against the participating hospital, obtain those damages available for personal injury." Report an EMTALA violation to the state licensing agency in the table, which investigates for CMS, and say the word EMTALA in the first sentence; it is a different investigation from a general complaint.

• The same day, write the log. Date, time, location, every name or description, what was said in quotes, what was done and not done, who else was there.
• Get the record. You have a federal right to your chart within 30 days (our records guide has the request). The chart note that says "patient agitated" when you were asking for pain relief is evidence.
• Name the standard. "I was not offered a screening exam" (EMTALA). "The interpreter I requested was refused" (Section 1557, national origin). "The physician prescribed without examining me" (medical board).
• File in writing, keep copies, note the deadline. 180 days for OCR; boards and state agencies mostly have none, but memory and records fade.
• Ask what happens next. Each agency will tell you whether you get a case number, whether you will be interviewed, and whether you will learn the outcome. Board outcomes are often public; OCR's are not always.

None of these doors pays you for harm. A complaint can change a license, a policy or a hospital's practices; money for an injury comes through a malpractice or civil rights lawsuit, which has its own deadline in every state (our guide to malpractice deadlines quotes each statute). File the complaint anyway: an investigation file is evidence, and agencies act on patterns that no single lawsuit sees.

The experiences that bring Black patients to this page are documented in the medical literature and in the hospital's own chart notes: pain under-treated, symptoms disbelieved, security called, a discharge that came before the diagnosis. The complaint system was built for exactly those facts, and it is used far less than it should be, because nobody hands you the form on the way out. This is the form. If you want a clinician who will not make you need it, our directory of Black clinicians is searchable by city and specialty, and our guide to asking for one in a hospital says how.