When a facility needs support, they need it as quickly as possible. Perhaps your facility is understaffed or in a rural location and your doctors are burning the candle at both ends. You seek out a telemedicine or teleradiology company like us to help fill those evening and weekend shifts in your ED.
But, the traditional Primary Source Verification credentialing process is slow-moving and time-consuming. From the time your need is realized until the time you get the doctors reading at your facility, it could be 30, 60, even 90 days later.
What if you could take those 90 days and shrink them down to two weeks?
Through Credentialing by Proxy (or Delegated Credentialing), we can reduce the timeline for credentialing, minimize your administrative overhead, help you provide better (and quicker) patient care, and give you the peace of mind that the support you receive meets or exceeds standards set by the Joint Commission.
How Does it Work?
As required by Medicare Conditions of Participation, hospitals and accredited healthcare facilities must have a credentialing process in place for any physician or practitioner providing services to patients.
Historically, this process has been conducted through Primary Source Verification, meaning either an internal staffing office or a third-party CVO (credentialing verification organization) must verify physician education, residency, board-certification, work history, and other credentials. Once verified, there is often an internal checklist that must also be met as each facility has its own requirements for credentialing.
Essentially, credentialing by proxy eliminates this timely burden of verification work for the originating site hospital/facility.
When a hospital is willing to utilize the credentialing by-proxy process, we will provide them with copies of the physician’s credentials to keep on file. This could be very minimal paperwork or an entire file, depending on what the facility requires for their application process.
Rather than doing the whole process themselves, they are relying on our privileging and credentialing process, which meets or exceed the standards set by the Joint Commission (by which we are accredited).
What are the Benefits?
- Expedited Credentialing Timeline How do you go from a 90-day process to credentialing in just two weeksBy-proxy credentialing makes sense and increases efficiencies; it not only eliminates the verification workload for your staff, but it also shortens the process on our end and improves patient care. If you require, say, 10 doctors to help support your ED, we don’t have to fill out 10 different state- or hospital-specific applications and all their subsequent forms, get them signed by the doctors, and submit them.It’s an average 20 hours of work to get the applications filled out for 10-15 doctors, plus an additional 10 hours to get the file prepared – and this is assuming an employee has nothing else on his plate and singularly focused on this credentialing process, that a doctor is available to sign the forms, and that the facilities are quick to respond for verification requests.It takes approximately two weeks just to get what is needed to be submitted (not to mention the extra step of the hospital receiving the application and having to go through their own internal checklist) and then it needs to be presented at the credentialing committee meeting … which could not be happening for another 60 days.The time it takes to be able to approve a new physician so they can start reading is a fraction of the time if we’re able to utilize the delegated credentialing agreement, as opposed to the primary source verification. It is a matter of weeks vs. months for you to get the support you need.
- Lower Administrative OverheadHow can you avoid paying for a CVO?Many hospitals do not have an internal medical staff office to process the application for a new physician. If this is an accurate description of your facility, you are likely being supported by a third-party CVO to conduct the primary source verification for you. However, with credentialing by proxy, you no longer need to pay for that service. We are your CVO now, and we’re not charging you for a service that is no longer necessary.Moreover, using the credentialing by proxy agreement, we are often able to negotiate to have the application fee waived since we are no longer processing a separate application for each new doctor.
- A Custom-Fitted ProcessWhat if credentialing could be customized to your facility’s specific needs? Credentialing by proxy is not a one-size-fits-all kind of process. We customize it based on what your facility needs, whether that’s a full file on a new physician or one or two items for your records.Also, we are flexible with the credentialing agreement. We have our own template, but if your administration prefers to use an internal template that’s completely doable. Transparency is a priority here and we allow and encourage hospitals to review the entire agreement, change the verbiage, and add items.There is only one, inflexible way with the traditional credentialing process. But with credentialing by proxy there is a standardized agreement that is customized to fit your facility.
- Peace of MindWe are accredited by the Joint Commission – what does this mean for you?
The purpose of credentialing is to verify that a physician is qualified, educated, licensed, and has no past issues. This assurance as to the quality of care provided by our doctors is not lost when we use the credentialing by proxy agreement. In fact, it is strengthened.
We are processing physicians at the same or even better standards than the Joint Commission. We use the same guidelines and the commission can come in at any time to confirm that. So, you can have the peace of mind that our physicians and practitioners provide the highest quality care.
As a teleradiology company, we make three core promises: We’ll help you provide better patient care, we will work efficiently and effectively to meet the needs in your healthcare facility, and we’re going to simplify your credentialing process.
Whether you choose to utilize credentialing by proxy or you’re not yet ready to abandon the primary source verification, we will still uphold those three promises. We are cognizant of the need to be efficient and with our low-profile credentialing footprint, we minimize the work regardless of the credentialing direction you take.