Maintaining Your Profile After Relocation | MedXL

Moving your practice to a new city, state, or province is disruptive enough without discovering months later that patients are still calling your old clinic and directories still list a license you no longer hold. Your public profile is often the last thing updated during a relocation and the first thing patients and recruiters see. This guide walks through what to update, in what order, and how the process differs between the United States and Canada.

Why stale profiles cause real harm

An out-of-date profile is not just untidy. It creates concrete problems:

The fix is a deliberate update sequence, because some records feed others and updating them out of order means doing the work twice.

Update the primary sources first

Directories, including MedXL, generally defer to regulator and government records. Start at the top of the chain.

In the United States

  1. State medical board records. Notify your former board and your new board of your address change. Address-change notification is typically mandatory within a defined window; the exact rule and timeline vary by state, so check both boards' websites.
  2. NPI record (NPPES). Update your practice address and mailing address. Many downstream systems, including insurers and directories, sync from NPI data, so this single update propagates widely.
  3. DEA registration. Registration is tied to the state where you handle controlled substances; a move usually requires modification or a new registration. Confirm current requirements with the DEA.
  4. Payer directories. Insurance networks maintain their own provider directories, and federal rules require them to be kept accurate. Notify each plan you participate in.

In Canada

  1. Provincial or territorial college. If you moved within a province, update your address on the register. If you moved between provinces, you are dealing with a new registration, and your public register entry in the new province becomes the primary source. Check the specific college's process, as requirements differ.
  2. CMPA and billing registrations. Update your region of work with the CMPA and your billing number arrangements with the provincial health insurance plan.
  3. Hospital and clinic records. Your new privileges and your departure from previous facilities should both be current, since these feed staff directories.

Then update your public directory profiles

Once primary sources are correct, work through the public layer:

  1. Claimed directory profiles. Update location, phone, accepted-patients status, and affiliations on each platform where you have claimed your profile. On MedXL you can edit these details directly once your profile is claimed, and keeping them aligned with the register avoids verification hiccups later.
  2. Unclaimed listings. Search for yourself in your old and new locations. Unclaimed pages often auto-populate from stale data; claim them or use the platform's correction process.
  3. Practice websites and Google listings. Your clinic's own site, map listings, and social pages should all state the new address and, where relevant, a clear note about the transition.
  4. Old-location cleanup. Ask your former practice to remove you from their "our physicians" page and confirm the hospital where you held privileges has updated its directory.

Handle the transition period deliberately

There is usually a window when you are winding down in one place and starting in another. During that window:

Relocation and your license footprint

Relocation raises the question of what to do with the license you are leaving behind.

Whatever you choose, your public profiles should match reality. Displaying a license you have let lapse, or omitting the jurisdiction where you now primarily practice, are both errors that verification systems and sharp-eyed credentialing staff will catch.

A one-week relocation profile checklist

Frequently asked questions

How soon before the move should I start? As soon as the move is certain. New licenses and registrations are the long pole, and several of the profile updates depend on them existing first. The public-facing updates themselves can wait until a few weeks before your start date, when you can state the new location and effective date confidently.

Should I announce the move on my profile? A short, factual transition note is helpful: where you are seeing patients now, from what date the new location applies, and how existing patients can request records. Remove the note once the transition is old news, since a years-old "we've moved" line makes the whole profile look unmaintained.

What about my reviews and ratings? Reviews attached to your individual profile generally stay with you on platforms where the profile represents you rather than the clinic. Reviews left on your former practice's pages belong to the practice. This asymmetry is one more reason to maintain a claimed individual profile before a move rather than scrambling afterward.

Who do I contact when a directory keeps reverting my address? Ask the platform which upstream source it syncs from, then fix that source. Persistent reversion almost always means an NPI record, register entry, or employer page still carries the old address.

Key takeaways

Canonical link