Credentialing & Privileging

Verifying employment/appointment history: Determining how far back is far enough

Credentialing & Verification Update, March 28, 2007

Discuss the topic of verifying employment/appointment history-and in particular the topic of how far back into the practitioner's past to delve-with credentialing specialists, and you're likely to get opinions that run the gamut. Some credentialing specialists question the value of verifying a practitioner's entire career when attempting to determine his or her current clinical competence.

Each hospital must determine how far back to verify an applicant's healthcare-related employment, appointment, and/or privilege history. 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 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 the hospital 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.

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