• E-mail
• Print
• RSS
• Reprints

Dos and don’ts for credentialing and assessing locum tenens providers

Credentialing and Peer Review Legal Insider, May 1, 2010

This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Credentialing and Peer Review Legal Insider.

Before a physician can join a locum tenens agency, the agency should perform its own credentialing. Most agencies run various online checks including but not limited to licensure, board certification and Medicare/Medicaid fraud. However, most locum tenens agencies do not require full primary source verification. The agency can share any verifications it receives with its client hospitals upon request, says Sarah Finley, team lead of privileging at Delta Locum Tenens in Dallas, TX.

A hospital should confirm with the locum tenens agency the items that were and were not verified as part of the agency’s credentialing process, according to Bruce Armon, Esq. at Saul Ewing, LLP, in Philadelphia. Knowing what the agency did and did not confirm allows the credentialing specialist to start filling in gaps right away.

Some hospitals accept a locum tenens agency’s credentialing the same as they would a credentialing verification organization’s (CVO) credentialing. This practice is acceptable for Joint Commission-accredited hospitals as long as the locum tenens agency meets all of the terms that a CVO must meet, which The Joint Commission spells out in the glossary of the Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Hospitals, says Kathy Matzka, CPMSM, CPCS, a medical staff services consultant in Lebanon, IL.

This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Credentialing and Peer Review Legal Insider.

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive
• Reprints / Permissions