More on medical staff categories

A few weeks ago I wrote a column about categories of the medical staff.  I encouraged medical staffs to clearly separate membership issues from privileges.  And I asked to hear from those of you who have dealt with membership categories in creative ways.

 

I did hear from a few organizations (seems like this is an issue that many of you are struggling with and you aren't ready to share "best practices" yet).

 

Kris Rockwell, manager of medical staff services at Children's Hospital in Omaha, NE, writes about having categories for membership and categories for privileges:

 

I was reading your article this morning and it made me feel pretty good about these same changes we made about three to four years ago after implementing a hospitalist service. 

 

At that time our VPMA, Dr. Stephen Lazoritz, had the foresight to separate out membership and privileges.  We now have active, affiliate and honorary membership categories and admitting, consulting, pediatric consult required, and no privileges privilege categories. 

 

The criteria for active membership got away from numbers criteria and we now have more citizenship type criteria:

·        demonstrates an interest and commitment to the medical staff and pediatric care

·        admits the majority of pediatric patients to Children's Hospital

·        actively participates on a medical staff committee

·        serves in a peer review or proctoring capacity

·        regularly attends our CME activities

·        provides a service to the hospital which is not available form other sources

·        or demonstrates an ongoing clinical competence in the area of specialty

 

The affiliate membership category is not eligible for clinical privileges. This category is reserved for our referring physicians or former active members that just want to utilize the hospital service for inpatient services. This affords them access to our computer system so they can follow the patient and have access to test results timely, they receive our monthly newsletter and can attend our CME activities.  The annual medical staff dues are significantly less than the active membership category.

 

Since we are a pediatrics facility, the pediatric consult required privilege category is recommended by the credentials committee for our adult-trained members lacking pediatric training or experience.

 

Since implementing this change, we've learned it is probably a good idea to further define the privilege categories. What does it mean to have consulting privileges?  Are those individuals required to take ED call or not? What category must a member have in order to see patients in one of our clinics?  And what does provisional status really mean? These and other questions will be addressed by our bylaws committee to recommend further definitions.

 

Thanks for sharing, Kris. This is helpful information for our readers.  Dealing with medical staff categories in a way that acknowledges the realities of practicing medicine today is a goal of many medical staff leaders for 2007.

 

Best wishes for a happy and successful 2007! 

 

Until next week,

 

Vicki L. Searcy, CPMSM
Practice Director, Credentialing & Privileging
The Greeley Company
vsearcy@greeley.com
www.greeley.com