If you've ever been curious about whether a healthcare practitioner is behaving properly, you might be interested in knowing that the Washington State Department of Health has both very specific guidelines about allowed and prohibited behaviors for different classes of practitioners*, and also that you can search providers' credentials to see if there have been complaints filed against them.
Practitioners should ideally have their license numbers on their promotional materials, but if they don't, they should at least be willing to provide them if you ask. You can also look them up by name, but this might not work quite as well if the person doesn't go by their legal name, or if it is a very common name.
If you were to look me up by name, though, you would find that I am licensed as a Massage Practitioner (MA00016246) and that I am registered as a Nursing Assistant (NA00193321).
*The legal parameters for massage therapists are usually listed under Licensing/Certification, then Massage Therapists, then Laws, but it appears that the link is currently broken. This may have something to do with the fact that there are only two employees working for the state who handle ALL of the licensing, which also means that it sometimes takes months for new practitioners to receive their licenses after they've submitted their applications and money. *sigh*
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