Credentialing of providers is a challenge for many surgical facilities.
If you’ve listened to Credentialing Chronicles, the podcast co-hosted by Shannen Aguayo, founder and CEO of Advanced Quality Compliance, and Nyleen Flores, BA, FMSP, CPMSM, CPCS, CPCO, CASC, administrator at Lake Oconee Orthopedics in Greensboro, Ga. (and member of our Periop Leader Week Program Committee) – or attended Ms. Flores’ eye-opening session on the subject at OR Business Management Summit last month – you know about the patient safety horrors and legal exposure that can result for your center when the job of credentialing isn’t approached deliberately and thoroughly.
But what about the other side of the equation: the providers you’re credentialing?
Marc Ayoub, MD, a neurocritical care physician with Neuroscience Partners in Lakewood, Calif., posted an opinion piece on the subject this week on MedPage Today’s KevinMD.com.
The article, titled “Health care credentialing is broken: How to fix the staffing crisis,” begins with a tale of a “world-class anesthesiologist at a major hospital in Manhattan. She is fully credentialed, board-certified, and has been saving lives at that facility for five years. On her day off, she wants to pick up an extra shift at a surgery center three blocks away that is currently short-staffed and desperate for help. Logic says she should be able to walk in, show her ‘Ready-to-Work’ status, and start. Instead, she is met with a 90-day onboarding wall.
“She is told to re-submit her DEA, re-verify her medical school diploma, and wait for a background check that she just passed across the street. Because of this friction, the surgery center stays understaffed, the doctor loses income, and a billion-dollar agency eventually swoops in to fill the gap with a travel doc, charging a 40 percent markup for the ‘convenience.’”
Dr. Ayoub states, “This isn’t a labor shortage. This is an infrastructure failure.”
Read Dr. Ayoub’s full article here.
Perhaps he would make a great guest for a lively debate on Credentialing Chronicles!
