Credentialing & Privileging

HFAP's Teleradiology Credentialing Standards

Credentialing Resource Center Connection, December 11, 2008

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Annette Van Veen Gippe is the deputy director of the American Osteopathic Information Association in Chicago. This is her first column for the Credentialing and Privielging Advisor ezine.

Dear credentialing colleague:

The Healthcare Facilities Accreditation Program (HFAP) has been accrediting healthcare facilities for over 60 years and on behalf Medicare and Medicaid since its inception in 1965. HFAP standards are formatted in such a way to simplify interpretation, relate standards to CMS requirements, and explain how surveyors will score each element.

We do get questions however, including ones about the credentialing of teleradiologists. The HFAP standard that discusses this is 03.01.15, Required Application-Reapplication Information for Review.

Embedded within the standard is CFR 482.11(c) which states “The hospital must assure that personnel are licensed or meet other applicable standards that are required by state or local laws.”

This means that the hospital is completely responsible for personnel, including teleradiologists. The hospital may use credentialing verification organizations (CVO) to perform primary source verification (PSV), but the CVO must follow the applicable HFAP standards if it is credentialing on behalf of an HFAP-accredited organization.

HFAP-accredited hospitals must privilege their practitioners by evaluating several areas listed in the standard. Three mandatory ways to evaluate competencies and credentials are:

  • PSV
  • Querying the National Practitioner Data Bank
  • Individual evaluations provided by their peers on the facility's form

    This standard also requires the physician to hold a current license in the resident state of the patient whose film they are reading.

    These HFAP standards were developed after consultations with CMS indicated that verification by proxy is not acceptable. State surveyors have been instructed to cite facilities at the Condition level if the privileging/credentialing is not done appropriately.

    For more information about HFAP, visit the organization’s Web site at www.hfap.org.

    All the best,

    Annette Van Veen Gippe



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    Comments

    1 comments on “HFAP's Teleradiology Credentialing Standards ”

    Kim (10/4/2010 at 3:07 PM)
    Is it acceptable for an HFAP facility to adopt a telemedicine bylaw, and verify a practioner's top ten affilitions by volume? If not, how is an HFAP facility expected to keep up with the demands of healthcare costs and patient needs, which can be alleviated through telemedicine, if we are expected to verify hundreds of affiliations on every practioner?

     

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