What does 2017 have in store for MSPs and medical staff leaders?
January 16, 2017
This week, CRC Daily covers credentialing. To kick things off, Melinda E. Whitney, RN, BSN, BS, MS, CPHQ, CPMSM, FACHE, senior consultant of quality management services at The Quality Management Consulting Group in Columbus, Ohio, predicts which emerging and longstanding credentialing trends will make waves in the year ahead.
Significant 2016 credentialing-related issues that are anticipated to continue in 2017 include:
- Expansion of telemedicine: Medical staff leaders and MSPs will continue to face credentialing and privileging changes and challenges as they adapt to the Medicare hospital/critical access hospital Conditions of Participation regarding credentialing by proxy. The continued growth of telemedicine specialties and practitioners generates questions from MSPs who are operationalizing the process. Hazy areas include content and delineation of telemedicine clinical privileges and state law–specific considerations such as licensure and prescribing.
- The evolution of the traditional medical staff services department into a credentials verification organization (CVO) or the home of one: This transformation continues to occur across the country as medical staff leaders and hospital administrators push to streamline the application process and use information provided by the physician/advanced practice professional (APP) applicant for multiple purposes (e.g., credentialing and privileging, employment, and managed care).
- APPs’ growing presence and shifting regulatory landscape: Changing state-specific laws, rules, and regulations continue to generate issues for medical staff leaders/MSPs related to licensure, scope of practice, and roles for APPs (e.g., advanced practice registered nurses, physician assistants) in the traditional medical staff structure. The types of nonphysician practitioners seeking clinical privileges are also increasing (e.g., dietitians, pharmacists).
- Information sharing: Information-sharing challenges stay in the forefront as more departments within a system—and collaborators from beyond it—demand increased transparency and/or access to privileged peer review information.