Credentialing & Privileging Newsletters

Credentialing and Peer Review Legal Insider Credentialing Resource Center

The Credentialing and Peer Review Legal Insider provides the latest 'how-to' techniques, and practical 'working tools' to help you credential and conduct peer review more easily and more effectively - while avoiding legal pitfalls!

Subscribe »

2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002

Credentialing and Peer Review Legal Insider

Issue 12, December 1, 2007 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Paying for physician peer review participation?

  Does your hospital compensate its medical staff physicians for the time they spend on peer review...

• Consider all aspects entailed in criminal background checks

  Several states, but not a majority, require hospitals to perform criminal background checks on...

Issue 11, November 1, 2007 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Get familiar with new Stark Law Phase III regulations

  CMS has issued the long-awaited Stark II Phase III final rules, with changes that involve indirect...

• Does your facility have a palliative sedation protocol?

  Palliative sedation is the process of sedating a patient who is at the end of life to ease...

Issue 10, October 1, 2007 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Proper handling of physician quality data increases hospitals' legal protection

  Hospital regulators' and payors' attempts to use objective data to make reimbursement...

• Put board certification in context when privileging MDs

  As a medical staff professional or leader, you may rely on a physician's board certification status...

Issue 9, September 1, 2007 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Revisions to MS.1.20 will send hospitals back to the drawing board

  In July, The Joint Commission finalized a revised standard MS.1.20-the standard that governs the...

• Emergency planning: Anticipate altered standard of care

  The terrorist attacks of 9/11 spurred legislators and regulators-as well as hospital administrators...

Issue 8, August 1, 2007 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Limit reliance on NPDB, other data bank reports

  The Health Care Quality Improvement Act (HCQIA) of 1996 requires hospitals to query the National...

• NPIs needed for electronic provider transactions

  As the result of a CMS-issued notice in the May 30 Federal Register, individual healthcare...

Issue 7, July 1, 2007 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Know your facility's exclusive contracts

  Facilities often enter into exclusive contracts with hospital-based physicians-radiologists...

• Avoid risk in credentialing telemedicine providers

  Telemedicine-the exchange of medical information from one site to another via electronic...

Issue 6, June 1, 2007 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Adopt proper procedures to ensure fair use of precautionary suspensions

  Suspending a physician's privileges is a complicated and disruptive undertaking-for both the...

• Use caution when negotiating NPDB and other reports

  When a physician agrees to relinquish privileges or resigns from the medical staff to avoid an...

Issue 5, May 1, 2007 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• New Joint Commission requirements enable shift in monitoring AHPs

  How does your facility assess the qualifications and competence of allied health practitioners...

• Take steps to preserve the confidentiality of electronic peer review information

  Hospitals typically have extensive procedures in place to segregate peer review documents, with the...

Issue 4, April 1, 2007 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Instituting physician-friendly communication techniques

  Physicians are notorious for being difficult to reach and communicate with, and are sometimes...

• Use patient satisfaction information appropriately to improve patient care

  In response to competitive pressures-as well as Joint Commission directives and state...

Issue 3, March 1, 2007 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Prevent abuse of credentialing process to manipulate ED call obligations

  Ensuring specialist coverage in the emergency department (ED) has always been a concern for...

• Chicago imaging center case maps out regulatory minefield

  In January, the Illinois attorney general's (AG) office took over prosecution of a case against a...

Issue 2, February 1, 2007 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Be aware of risks in joint hospital-physician advertising

  There was a time when hospital advertising was considered unprofessional and almost unethical. The...

• Should you accommodate a privileged physician without prescriptive authority?

  Imagine that a well-respected pediatrician, privileged at your facility, has developed a dependency...

Issue 1, January 1, 2007 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Construct hearing procedures to take advantage of judicial deference

  If a physician at your facility brings a lawsuit alleging an unfair hearing procedure or appeals...

• Analyze risk, establish policy for handling electronic credentialing signatures

  As more aspects of credentialing and privileging become Web-based, hospitals are seeing an...