Credentialing & Privileging

Are you crawling fast enough?

Credentialing Resource Center Connection, November 29, 2007

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Credentialing Resource Center Connection!

Sally J. Pelletier, CPMSM, CPCS, is a consultant with The Greeley Company, a division of HCPro, Inc., specializing in the areas of credentialing and privileging.

Dear credentialing colleague:

The expanded use of technology in the field of credentialing and privileging has been slow in coming compared to other industries, but it has arrived and we all should be taking full advantage of it. From the free encyclopedia, Wikipedia, comes a Web crawler (also known as a Web spider or Web robot) which is a program or automated script which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. Web crawler technology will automatically conduct many primary source verifications such as verification of state licensure from a state licensing board and store the information electronically. The use of Web crawler technology is a crucial time saver that allows MSPs to focus their attention on newly added responsibilities, such as gathering physician competency information and evidence for use in the credentialing and privileging process. 

Another example of progress in the field of automated technology is the Proactive Disclosure Service (PDS) recently implemented by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Health Resources and Services. The PDS allows for 24-hour, 365-days-a-year querying of the practitioners on your medical staff, and provides information on a practitioner within one business day of the receipt of the report to the Data Banks (National Practitioner Data Bank and Health Care Integrity and Protection Data Bank).

MSPs do not frequently utilize credentialing software to its full capacity, or they fail to update it. If you do not have Web crawler technology, it is past the time to contact your software vendor to obtain an updated product. For those of you who attended NAMSS in New York in October, you had the availability of a myriad of software vendors at your fingertips. I hope that you were able to take full advantage of their expertise and that you were able to make your way to their booth for a demonstration of their products. 

If you are in the process of conducting a staffing analysis in the hopes of obtaining additional personnel, have you first evaluated your current software needs or your current software use? Another body in the office may not necessarily be the answer. The correct credentialing software and the correct use of it can:

  • Decrease the volume of paper that everyone must handle (filing, copying, and disseminating)
  • Increase the speed of processing applications and reapplications
  • Decrease turnaround time for the verification of information
  • Automate office operations
  • Provide an efficient alternative to the need for an additional FTE

Remember, credentialing has no other master than the patient.

That's all for this week.

All the best,

Sally J. Pelletier, CPMSM, CPCS
http://www.greeley.com/consulting.cfm



Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Credentialing Resource Center Connection!

Most Popular

Related Articles