Ask the expert: Credentialing realities during acquisitions

Q: What credentialing tasks get disrupted the most during an acquisition?

Sara Cameron, CPMSM, CPCS, senior consultant with The Hardenbergh Group: Primary source verification (PSV), onboarding timelines, and anything tied to data migration. As soon as you have one provider needing to be credentialed across multiple entities, timelines get tight and miscommunication increases.

Q: How should MSPs prioritize tasks when everything becomes urgent?

Cameron: Prioritize by impact and risk. What affects patient care, compliance, and revenue? Handle those first. Then create a clear crosswalk so work isn’t duplicated across facilities. Without structure, the loudest request wins—and that’s never sustainable.

Q: What documentation or PSV issues are most challenging?

Cameron: Inconsistent file quality and mismatched definitions of what “complete” means [are most challenging]. One facility may have accepted something for years that doesn’t meet the system’s standards. And duplicating PSVs across sites is a massive time sink without coordination.

Q: Have credentialing delays ever affected retention or onboarding?

Cameron: Definitely. Acquisitions already make providers uneasy. If onboarding stalls because credentialing is backed up, it feels like the organization doesn’t have its act together. Providers have left situations like that, especially when they’re newly employed.

Editor’s note: This Q&A was excerpted from our Credentialing Resource Center Journal newsletter.