Solutions

Solutions powered by SVG logo for hStream platform.
Learn More.
Frame 586 (1)

Quality Manager formerly known as abaqis®

Mitigate risk and elevate your quality of care. Improving both clinical and business outcomes starts with a smarter, more integrated approach to regulatory training, continuing education and quality management.

Learn More

NEW TO THE STORE

hStream Content Marketplace

Connecting you to the Best Content. Access to 75 Partners and 35,000+ Courses in our Industry-Leading Marketplace. Streamline content purchasing, updates, hosting, and connectivity for your organizational needs

NurseGrid Learn

Online store for Clinical Learners. Individual CE Credit and industry products for Clinical Learners are now available through NurseGrid Learn (Beta). Explore our robust collection of courses that provides an unparalleled level of flexibility and choice.

Practitioner Courses

Meet the DEA's new requirement under the Medication Access and Training Expansion (MATE) Act in an online, high-quality and self-paced 8-hour DEA MATE Act course specifically designed for practitioners, including Physicians, PAs, NPs, Pharmacists, Dentists and others.

LATEST & POPULAR

BLOG

CredentialStream named the top credentialing software by G2
REPORT

2024 Annual Report on Medical Staff Credentialing
On-Demand Webinar

State of the Industry: What’s Next for Healthcare Quality & Safety in 2024?
BLOG

Summer 2024's Top Choice in Healthcare Credentialing: CredentialStream
BLOG

HealthStream Executive Briefing: CMS Minimum Staffing Standards: What You Need to Know
Webinar

Clinical Placement for the Future of Healthcare: myClinicalExchange Discussion with CommonSpirit Mt Region and UW Health

< HealthStream Resources

blog

Privileging Telehealth Providers

April 1st, 2021
April 1st, 2021

HealthStream regularly publishes guest blog posts like the one below from Vicki Searcy; Vice President, Client Success Services and Consulting; VerityStream.

I had a discussion recently with one of the consultants on our team. The discussion focused on how she got into credentialing, how she transitioned into working for a software vendor, and her career pathway into the consulting team at VerityStream. There has been a theme among our consulting team—they love the fact that industry needs are constantly changing, which creates the need to constantly expand their knowledge. Every week, month, and year there are opportunities to learn. As I think back upon my career, what I’m doing today as a consultant is markedly different than what I did 5 years, 10 years, or 20 years ago. Today I work with clients on issues that were not even part of the industry 5 or 10 years ago.

The Rise of Telehealth

One of those issues in today’s credentialing industry is the significant upswing in the use of telehealth providers throughout healthcare (you may call this telemedicine, eHealth, etc.). You may be in an organization that provides telehealth services to other organizations and/or receives telehealth services. It is a rare organization these days that is not involved in telehealth services. And it is only going to grow!

The thing that we all have in common from a credentialing and privileging perspective is how to manage the credentialing and privileging of these providers and determining what data is needed in our provider/credentialing database in order to manage and produce the reports that are needed.

Still Figuring Things Out

It is evident to me from speaking with credentialing professionals from organizations all over the country that credentialing via proxy (which has been permitted by CMS since July 5, 2011) is not being used as widely as it could be—and when it has been implemented, there are still lots of requests for provider credentialing data from the originating site to the distant site that is not required under CMS and Joint Commission requirements (originating site is where the patient is—distant site is where the provider is credentialed). There are lots of variations in the way that organizations handle telehealth providers. That is typical when new components are added to credentialing/privileging—it takes some time for the industry to develop a defined roadmap that most organizations utilize. Remember when FPPE was introduced by the Joint Commission in 2008? It has taken some time for organizations to adopt what we might call best practices in how to implement and manage FPPE.

Todd Sagin, MD, JD and I spoke on the topic of telemedicine at the NAMSS Conference on October 22, 2019 in Philadelphia, PA. We heard from customers and others before the conference about the issues you are dealing with as you manage your telehealth providers. Check out our blog post on the results of the survey about how organizations are involved in credentialing telehealth providers.

Thanks for reading—and thanks for your help as we delve into issues related to streamlining how we manage our telehealth providers.

Learn more about how VerityStream provides Credentialing, Privileging, Enrollment, and Evaluation for Health Systems and Health Plans.

Request Demo