The Cost of a Credentialing Mistake
Ineffective credentialing which permits an unqualified physician to practice or a qualified physician to practice beyond his or her current demonstrated competence has huge costs, including:
- Patient injury - Unfortunately, patient injury can happen under the best of circumstances, but the likelihood of patient injury is magnified when credentialing fails.
- Employee morale - Recruiting and retaining qualified, committed nurses and other personnel is a great challenge. Key to that success is a workplace which emphasizes excellent care in a respectful, collaborative environment. Good credentialing can identify applicants who threaten that goal.
- Medical staff toil and trouble - Ask medical staff leaders about their hardest, most unpleasant task and it will be identifying, investigating and addressing problems with their physician colleagues. It is so difficult that it is seldom done in a timely fashion. Too frequently, they live with these problems too long, hoping they will self-correct.
- Dollars and cents - Experienced medical staff leaders can testify about lost referrals and time away from practice. Hospitals can testify about the legal fees that begin to mount once a medical staff review begins and often continues until litigation resolves the matter years later.
The good news? Credentialing mistakes are often avoidable, and EPR® Credentialing can help.
