Tip of the week: Adjust policies to grant membership without privileges

Your credentials committee can recommend medical staff membership for a low- or no-volume practitioner who wants to be affiliated with your hospital but does not want or need privileges to admit and treat patients.

If your medical staff wants the option of granting physicians membership without privileges, its policies must allow for that. For example, if the medical staff’s membership criteria require members to provide ED on-call coverage, or if they specifically state that all members must hold clinical privileges, your organization will not have the option of appointing a physician to the medical staff without also granting privileges.

Under such circumstances, inform the practitioner that he or she does not meet your organization’s minimum, criteria for membership and the medical staff services department will therefore not process the application.

This week’s tip is from Assessing the Competency of Low-Volume Practitioners, by Mark A. Smith, MD, MBA, CMSL and Sally Pelletier, CPMSM, CPCS.