Topic: Medical Credentialing

By Linda Ash-Jackson, MD
Ambulatory surgery center credentialing poses unique challenges for both administration and surgeons. For administration, keeping up-to-date with ambulatory surgery center credentialing requirements for a revolving roster of surgeons is a never-ending task. Doctors and other health professionals who work out of multiple ASCs require individual credentialing for each location of care — and must stay current on the credentialing requirements of each location.
What Makes Credentialing at Ambulatory Surgery Centers a Challenge?

Physician stress and burnout have negatively impacted the healthcare industry for years and worsened with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In April of 2021, Kaiser Family Foundation released a survey of 1,327 frontline healthcare workers. A staggering 55 percent of respondents reported experiencing burnout. Healthcare workers between the ages of 18 and 29 reported the highest burnout rate at 70 percent.
Utilizing a platform that has the ability to simplify credentialing and save time and resources will allow the physicians at your location of care to focus on what matters most –

Locations of care use provider credentialing to ensure all staff, applicants, and affiliated providers have the credentials necessary to perform their duties responsibly. Credentialing is how trust is cultivated within the healthcare industry, but the manual, paper-based process that is so prevalent can take far too long while also being prone to errors and high costs. As a result, the lack of consistency can lead to an erosion of that trust over time. By utilizing technology to optimize these credentialing processes,

The emergence and rapid spread of the COVID-19 delta variant have led to a dramatic rise in hospitalizations across the United States. According to the CDC, delta is twice as contagious as previous variants and appears to cause more serious symptoms in unvaccinated patients. Rates of hospitalization are now similar to those seen prior to vaccination efforts.
In response, states like Texas are implementing a series of actions to mitigate rising COVID-19 rates, including seeking out-of-state medical professionals to support overwhelmed hospitals.

Physician burnout is real … and costly.
Aside from negative clinical outcomes, it’s costing the U.S. healthcare industry roughly $4.6 billion a year, according to a recent study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. At an organizational level, the annual cost associated with burnout is approximately $7,600 per employed physician each year.
One culprit to the burnout: paperwork.
Why is it Paperwork?
The study cites a mounting load of paperwork, in addition to bureaucratic demands,

When you walk down the hospital hallways, have you ever wondered about the people you pass? Do they work at this facility, are they contractors, do they represent a pharmaceutical company? How do you know they are who they say they are?
That’s where credentialing comes in. To provide the highest level of care, we must ensure the highest level of trust between the hospital and those who provide services and supplies at the hospital. When we credential hospital visitors,

Do you credential physicians? Clinical contractors? Vendors? Managing any credentialing program can be time-consuming and labor-intensive. It may require a great deal of investment in resources that are not available at every healthcare facility. However, being non-compliant is a risky business and could potentially cost your organization even more. IntelliCentric’s SEC³URE platform gives you all the advantages without the hassle!
Our cloud-based platform verifies and houses practitioners’ credentials as a portal, digital SEC³URE Ethos.