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Conflict of interest questions on a credentialing application

Credentialing & Verification Update, February 25, 2009

Like falling dominoes, it seems that one organization after another is demanding practitioners disclose conflicts of interest these days. Often times, the reasons behind this disclosure desire is that institutions fear their practitioner may be more loyal to pharmaceutical companies or device manufacturers than to patients. Ironically, some experts question how much patients care about their practitioner’s ties to big industry, according to a recent AMNews article “Medical centers reveal doctors’ industry pay.”

Nevertheless, hospitals are obligated to ensure practitioners deliver high quality patient care, not high financial returns for other organizations.

This raises the question: how should hospitals query practitioners about conflicts of interest? One place to put this question is on a credentialing application, but is this the correct place? If your organization does not already have a policy that addresses conflicts of interest disclose, your medical staff may want to form a committee as the first step to creating one. Don’t forget to include hospital legal counsel in these discussions to ensure compliance with applicable laws.

The preceding entry is posted on the Credentialing Resource Center blog.  To post a comment, or access the original AMNews article, click here.

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