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Tips for determining how far back to verify employment history

Credentialing & Verification Update, March 12, 2008

The topic of how far back into a practitioner's past to delve with regard to employment and/or appointment history is often a controversial one. Some credentialing specialists feel that verifying a practitioner's entire career when attempting to assess current clinical competence is not useful. It is not unreasonable to think that verification of an affiliation where the physician practiced more than 10 years ago is not an indication of that physician's current clinical competence.

However, in the current environment of negligent credentialing lawsuits, the public expects hospitals to be aware of any problems in a practitioner's background. Further, it is difficult to defend a lack of due diligence to obtain a complete picture of an applicant's healthcare-related work history.

While the vast majority of healthcare practitioners are well qualified and highly ethical, fraudulent completion of applications does occur. A practitioner may include on an application healthcare facilities where he or she has not practiced, or may give inaccurate details about an existing affiliation to enhance his or her resume. Querying all healthcare-related affiliations minimizes the risk to your hospital and patients should the credentialing process be scrutinized.

Verification of current clinical competence is obtained from current professional references (and/or program directors if the applicant is recently out of training), a report of recent clinical activity, and a query of recent healthcare affiliations. However, the best practice is collecting information about the practitioner's entire career to the greatest extent possible.

Talk back: What are your thoughts on this topic? What tried-and-true advice would you share about it to fellow MSPs? Please send comments to mcoler@hcpro.com. We'll compile them and print your feedback in future issues of CVU.

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