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HealthStream’s 2026 Trends in Medical Staff Credentialing Report examines how credentialing practices shape onboarding timelines, revenue readiness, and the overall provider experience. Based on its 10th annual survey, the report highlights how disconnects across the onboarding process, limited insight into financial impact, and persistent staffing constraints contribute to delays that affect both organizational performance and patient access.
During the webinar, HealthStream leaders walk through these findings, focusing on credentialing as one part of a broader onboarding continuum rather than an isolated function. The discussion centers on the need to align recruitment, credentialing, and enrollment workflows, reduce redundant requests to clinicians, and clarify ownership across teams. Presenters also emphasize that, although organizations are putting significant effort into these processes, many do not quantify or communicate their impact — particularly in financial terms — making it harder to gain leadership attention and support.
The conversation then turns to operational realities and next steps. Ongoing staffing shortages and limited capacity are described as major constraints, reinforcing the need for more standardized, well-defined processes. While tools such as automation, AI, and provider data wallets are discussed as areas of interest, the speakers note that these solutions depend on consistent workflows and reliable data to be effective.
The overarching message is that organizations that strengthen their processes and data practices — and position credentialing as a visible, measurable function — are better equipped to reduce delays and improve overall performance.
Click here to access the full webinar.
[00:00:50] Housekeeping and Resources
[00:01:34] Meet the Presenters
[00:02:07] Agenda and Audience Engagement
[00:03:13] Then vs Now Credentialing
[00:04:58] Live Poll and Survey Reach
[00:25:21] AI and Tech in Credentialing
[00:30:31] Process Improvement Priorities
[00:32:10] Streamline Provider Applications
[00:35:37] Provider Wallets Poll
[00:39:19] What Wallets Really Are
[00:47:56] Beyond Counting Files
[00:51:42] Future of Credentialing
[00:53:35] Using the Report to Lead
[00:54:34] Closing
Disclaimer: This transcription was written by AI, thanks to‚ÄØDescript, and has not been edited for content.‚ÄØ
[00:00:00] Andrea Schmitz: Hello, everyone. Thank you for spending some time with us today for our tenth annual Trends in Medical Staff Credentialing webinar. HealthStream is the leader in healthcare workforce solutions. We help organizations work better by helping their people work smarter. HealthStream provides the leading credentialing, scheduling, learning, and clinical development applications delivered on healthcare's number one platform.
[00:00:31] We streamline everyday tasks while improving performance, engagement, and safety. I'm your host, Andrea Schmitz, Director of Product Marketing at HealthStream, and I will be facilitating today's webinar.
[00:00:50] Andrea Schmitz: Before we begin, let's review a few housekeeping items. At the top of your console are buttons to display or hide the various panels and each panel is resizable and movable. Throughout today's webinar, please use the reaction buttons as I see you all doing right now, great, docked at the bottom of your console to let us know your reaction to the topics discussed. We love that live feedback. We encourage you to check out the additional resources located in the Related Content list on your console.
[00:01:11] This does include your NAM CE certificate for those of you that will need that before you leave today. You can also access your free copy of our 2026 Trends in Medical Staff Credentialing report by clicking the download button on your console. Lastly, we are recording today's webinar. We will send you that link within a few business days.
[00:01:34] Andrea Schmitz: Alright, we have an exciting presentation for you today, so without further delay, allow me to introduce your HealthStream presenters. We have Divya Shroff, Physician Executive Advisor. We have Tom Heitz, our Senior Consultant. Or I'm sorry, recently Director of HealthStream CVO. Had the wrong in my notes, Tom, sorry. And Meghan Kurtz, Senior Manager of Clinical Solutions. With that, I will hand it off to Tom to kick us off.
[00:02:03] Thomas Heitz: Thank you so much, Andrea.
[00:02:07] Thomas Heitz: Our agenda today is very similar to the agenda for last year. So we're going to start by elevating industry standards, getting to know you, our audience, walk through some of our key survey findings, and then discuss how you can leverage the 2026 Trends in Medical Staff Credentialing report.
[00:02:28] The main goal of its survey, now in its 10th year, is to help elevate medical staff services standards through identifying credentialing trends, providing metrics that can be used to elevate your operations, and to provide organizations with the data needed to help identify new initiatives and strategies. We are encouraging all of our attendees today to submit questions at any time using the Ask Questions box or Q&A box on your attendee console.
[00:02:54] This allows us to address inquiries in real time and ensure that your voice is part of today's discussion. Given the breadth of topics we'll be covering, please also use the Reactions button docked at the bottom of your console to indicate interest in areas where you would like our panel to spend additional time.
[00:03:13] Thomas Heitz: And to kick this off we thought it would be fun to discuss what credentialing was a decade ago versus what it is today. One of the many topics we're going to be talking about today is obviously AI and we did use them to generate these images. So what are some things you guys notice right off the bat that may be right or wrong about these images based on the prompts that we put in?
[00:03:41] I don't know Meghan, Dr. Sharp -- anything you guys would like to share that you see with these images? My own personal favorite is that in 2026, we just had the one box that said, "Provider files," and that is clearly where all of our provider files –
[00:03:56] Divya Shroff: -- lived. I'm not going to lie, until we did this, I forgot about the filing cabinets and the need of my medical staff office directors having to lock and make sure it's all secure. Until we did this exercise and this image it, it brought back a fun memory. And to say that's only been in the last 10 years that filing cabinets were so integral to medical staff operations.
[00:04:20] Meghan Kurtz: And the inbox, and your physical inbox with the papers and the folders everywhere. What's missing in --
[00:04:26] Thomas Heitz: -- the picture. Don't forget about the little red sticky tabs as well to mark --yeah-- your files where providers needed to spend more time.
[00:04:34] Meghan Kurtz: Where they're everywhere.
[00:04:34] Divya Shroff: I was thinking the only thing missing is a little cart for that exactly. To take all those files to every physician leader to say, "Hey, you didn't stop by my office. Would you do your work?"
[00:04:47] Thomas Heitz: Hey, I still use that cart, even though we were electronic, to wheel my iPads down to the boardroom, thank you very much.
[00:04:58] Thomas Heitz: Alright, so let's jump in to our first poll question today. You guys can click directly on your screen, but we are looking to see what perspective brought you to join our webinar today. You can select as many as apply here. So are you looking for a strategic ROI perspective for your facility or health system operations? Are you looking for operational insight for supporting this work/medical staff services? Are you doing day-to-day management of this critical work, or were you just looking for industry perspective and recommendations? And we'll give you guys a few more seconds. We'll try to get to fifty percent of attendees clicking in and providing us with some insight.
[00:05:44] This will help us on our side know why you guys are here and what maybe we should spend a little bit of time on. I see somebody in the comment section said that they love the fax machine in that last photo. I personally love that it was labeled fax because some of our younger medical staff professionals may never have used a fax machine, if they're lucky. Alright, it looks like we are over 50%. Alright. So the main reason it looks like people joined today was industry perspective and recommendations, followed closely by operational insight and day-to-day management of this critical work.
[00:06:33] This slide is really just to illustrate that we had respondents to our survey from across the United States, Puerto Rico, as well as outside of the United States. So it really is thanks to you guys that we have this data and have such a wide breadth of data coming from all over the United States. And with that, I will hand this over to Dr. Shroff to take it into our first key finding today.
[00:07:00] Divya Shroff: I think this is a really interesting finding because it dovetails beautifully for where we left the survey last year. So one of the questions we, I think, spent a lot of time talking about last year was, are people spending time on onboarding, and then are they tying that story together to revenue? And if we look at how people answered the poll today, only 20% at least indicated that's their why. And so that -- I think that dovetails beautifully into what we're seeing as a trend. While we know the majority of individuals are spending the time and energy on a formal onboarding program, we still haven't hit the 50% threshold on, I think, our teams getting credit on how that ties to the bigger financial picture.
[00:07:46] While that's -- it still is -- it's an increase from the year before, I think there's a lot of great opportunity, and it begs me to question, one, do people recognize that they're doing the work? Are they measuring it? And then are they aligning with the financial impact so that the CFO, their CMO, or whatever dotted line they report to in the C-suite, is giving them value and credit for how important and integral the work is.
[00:08:12] And then to -- then for me, as a former CMO, I wonder is the reason why we're seeing that disconnect while, again, we're doing the work -- does the leadership that, these individuals that they report up to, are they not aware of the importance of the work? Have they not drunk the Kool-Aid, or are they aware but they're not comfortable in advocating for the medical staff services department? I don't know. Because at the end of the day, I see this work as at minimum revenue protecting, but if not, revenue generating. And I really think we've got to tie that story together so that leads into bigger conversations that we're going to see in the study. But, the only way to do that is to tie it back to the money and get a seat at the table. But I don't know, Tom, what do you think? How do we help our individuals get there?
[00:09:04] Thomas Heitz: Yeah. I definitely think you have to go through the exercise of mapping out your onboarding process, and that really does mean starting at the time the contract was signed or your recruitment team recruited that provider to, alright, when is credentialing done? When is the enrollment done? When can we realistically bill for those providers? We know a lot of medical staff services are interacting with these providers at some point in that process, but who actually is owning that entire process and taking ownership of it? Are we letting various departments do it, or are we saying, "No, we're going to look at this end to end"?
[00:09:41] Because if you haven't gone through that mapping process, it's really hard to know where your delays are, where handoffs are happening that maybe data is being dropped along the way, or more importantly, when is the provider being asked for the same thing multiple times. I know I said that last year as well, but that's a big thing for providers.
[00:10:03] Providers are busy, and ultimately we know the faster we can credential a provider, the faster we can complete enrollment, the faster we can bill for a provider, the fast and faster our patients can get access to the providers. So it really is tied together whether we are working in a silo or working as a full team. And I will push it forward here and let Meghan go into a little bit more of what we found.
[00:10:29] Meghan Kurtz: Yeah, you're right, Tom. Onboarding definitely works better when it's provider-centric and it's coordinated and seamless for the provider experience. And that's not just for the provider experience. It makes it work faster. We did see that 40% medical staff or credentialing department are actually owning the onboarding process. And that's similar to last year's numbers. But we really want to dive into what exactly is occurring during the onboarding process and not just the touchpoints with medical staff services, not with just enrollment, but what else has to happen.
[00:11:03] The orientation, malpractice insurance, employee health. Are there any faculty appointments that have to happen? So like you said, mapping out exactly every touchpoint for the provider experience along the way to make sure that you can centralize it is really critical.
[00:11:21] Divya Shroff: And I think, Meghan, to what you're saying, the more even demonstrating whether these individual tasks or who owns it, that again, from a leadership perspective, increases your street value to show that you are integral in, in sort of hospital operations. And whether it's -- I think to me it's a two-way street, right?
[00:11:44] It's letting the C-suite know why it's important of what you do, but also for those physicians who may not love, as I think I said it last year, my kids always call this mommy's stinky paperwork, right? But if they see that this ties to their return, whether it's their paycheck, their patient volume, whatever, right?
[00:12:06] Everything you spoke to regarding enrollment, are they going to be more aligned and an ally to you on getting things completed timely versus they don't see what that big picture is of why they should get your work done because it actually behooves them. Does a physician understand then? Are you even in all these little buckets of educating them? Are you making them that aware in that med staff orientation, like why you matter and not just for your existence, but for their existence as well?
[00:12:37] Thomas Heitz: And I think that also speaks to how long is your organization's orientation or onboarding. A lot of people throw those two terms around as though they are interchangeable. But onboarding, that can be up to a year of getting -- working a physician into your organization. Orientation is usually just a day of paperwork that's not really fun for the people doing it or the people administering the orientation. But obviously, too, if your onboarding for your organization is provider centric, the providers feel supported, they feel like they have what they need, they feel like they know who is that contact.
[00:13:14] I'm going to go to Meghan and I know Meghan is going to know the answer to the question I have or can point me in the right direction. That provider is also now an advocate to other providers for your organization and saying, "Hey, you should come work here. This is a great place to work. It's not like that other crazy facility down the street where everybody's asking me for the same thing." Yeah. So I think it's, it really is looking at that holistic picture of how this impacts the enterprise overall.
[00:13:43] Divya Shroff: Yeah. I think, and I think the more you're connect to it, connected to that, right? If you see the value, right? Their patients are going to be your revenue generator, but it's the providers that are providing the service. If you're connected and seen as a sticky touchpoint or widget, that speaks to you being integral to facility operations, right? And so I agree to back to what Meghan was saying, you got to map it, you got to know it, you got to own it.
[00:14:09] Meghan Kurtz: Yeah. And don't be afraid to take on ownership of things that are, maybe if -- especially if -- you're siloed. If you really want a seat at the table, you need to really be willing to step up and coordinate all of those activities, because that will get you a seat.
[00:14:23] Thomas Heitz: Yep, 100%. I definitely see a comment that somebody has a recruiting team that does the onboarding, and that is fantastic that you have that one touch point for your provider from recruitment all the way through. I'm sure that is a provider satisfier. Absolutely.
[00:14:43] Meghan Kurtz: Alright. So let's talk about – alright, how tech affects -- sorry, Tom.
[00:14:48] Thomas Heitz: No problem. Let's talk about MSP candidates being in short supply. I am sure we sound like a broken record talking about this. This is something I'm going through at the moment as well with hiring. But we have continued since the pandemic to see very high results as far as medical staff leaders saying they are needing to bring new staff in, and then on top of that, finding the stolen staff.
[00:15:16] I think we all know that mental checklist that we're looking for when we're scanning these resumes. Does the person have credentialing experience or enrollment experience, or the experience that we're looking for? Are they certified? But once you yes or no those few questions, it then really becomes about looking at what else the candidate can bring or how can you grow the candidate.
[00:15:40] I mean, I worked in research before I entered this field. I didn't have credentialing experience, but I had a lot of transferable skills that I learned while doing research that I was able to apply to credentialing. And I think that goes to, one of the things we've talked about, Meghan, which is looking at those soft skills, and you were having to do that, even a decade ago just as we are today and identifying what you can do to bring people in and grow them when the people that we're looking for aren't necessarily out there.
[00:16:15] Meghan Kurtz: Yeah, there at least --yeah, sorry. No, go ahead. I was going to say at least, they're, they might not -- they might be out there, but we just can't find --
[00:16:23] Andrea Schmitz: -- them. We're not looking in the right places.
[00:16:25] Divya Shroff: True. I think, and I was going to say you both have lived this role in various organizations. And I think about what the -- whoever put in the comment that recruitment's doing their onboarding, right? But look at the survey question. How many people had to recruit, right? We're all recruiters in our own way, right? So while the recruiters might be doing onboarding at that individual's comment, how are you recruiting people who, whether, to your point, Tom, have the soft skills, have the transferable skills, or at minimum have the credentialing requirements?
[00:17:01] But to me, it's in this day and age when we have people who are maybe shying away from healthcare for a variety of reasons, or I think I saw a comment someone said about are people going to go for certifications now with AI. How do you make this subject something that someone's passionate about, that they see either a lifelong career, whether they see it as an entry level, a stepping stone into overall larger hospital organizations or healthcare organization.
[00:17:34] I think I said this last year. I would love to hear of a success story of someone who started in the credentialing space who becomes CEO of a healthcare system or a hospital. Because I see it. If you have the skills that you're working with one of, your most integral talented pools, you're able to bring them to the table, you're able to get them to buy in, they're able to do, right? You're able to groom physician leadership, all of those things. There's no reason that is running an operational department that you couldn't use this as a gateway. And is that an opportunity to recruit people, or are we thinking about that? Are external organizations like NAM thinking about how do we attract people to this profession?
[00:18:17] Or are larger health systems thinking about is this like an entryway of getting talent? Are they creating just the same way you're starting to see outside of even nursing, like nursing residencies, but you're starting to see some healthcare organizations saying, "Hey, we've got to grow other talent." Is that conversation happening within your organization? If it's not, how do you start to plant the seed and demonstrate that this is, A, an invaluable part of the organization, and you need HR, you need leadership development, you need those kind of or other parts of your organizations to help, shine a spotlight on the importance of this work? So I don't know, Meghan, Tom, what do you think to what I'm saying?
[00:19:02] Meghan Kurtz: I think it makes sense. No, I agree. Yeah. I always say it's medical staff services awareness week in November, not just appreciation week. It is that, that hidden gem of a career that a lot of a lot of people aren't aware of. And I agree, we definitely need career paths not just filling a seat in the office, not just to -- you know, having that career ladder I think is critical into growing your staff.
[00:19:27] Thomas Heitz: Yep, and I think there's two great comments I see in the Q&A box. One is making sure your recruiting team at your facility understands credentialing so they actually know what you're looking for. Especially today, I think that's probably even more important with the ATS systems that they're using to weed out resumes and everything like that. I think making sure the systems that are arguably AI are looking for the right things and not rejecting the people that you would actually want to interview is a great first step. And then the other comment was about potentially overlooking people who aren't certified, who have been in this industry for a really long time, and I think that's another great point.
[00:20:07] I think for those that are out there hiring it, one of the questions we always ask if somebody isn't certified is, "Is that something that you are interested in doing and making this a career? And if it is, okay, how can I help support you in that goal?" Because we all know it takes time and money to become certified, so how can you support your staff in achieving it and making sure they have the time to study? They have what they need and really get them to where they want to go because it benefits you, and obviously, Dr. Sharf, that feeds into your larger vision of how people can continue to grow and move within their organization. The other thing that comes to my mind, I think we all know medical staff offices are running very lean these days.
[00:20:53] We have just enough people to complete our task. So the moment somebody's out on FMLA or somebody decides to move on to another role, you are trying to push a boulder up a hill because you barely had enough people to complete all of your tasks to begin with.
[00:21:11] And we do see that in the survey that, the number one thing that medical staff leadership identified was that staffing, of the overall number of staff, is really limiting kind of things that they want to do within their organization. It is the number one obstacle to pretty much all the impediments that we ask. So it goes back to, how do you find that balance of, working your files, but then also having time to take on these larger projects that, really will give you a seat at the table and shine on your office. I don't know, Meghan, Dr. Sharf, if there's anything you would add to that, but these big initiatives are really where, to me, there's opportunity for MSPs to grow way beyond just, a credentialing position.
[00:21:55] Meghan Kurtz: And that, that's the kind of the catch-22. You're understaffed, so you can't get to these initiatives such as improving your overall process, improving your turnaround times being central to the provider data management portion of it or even standardizing and optimizing.
[00:22:13] We see tons of organizations every day consolidating and merging. And how do you make -- how do you streamline that when you're just trying to stay above water? So it is critical that you try to make some time to, to make a case for all of these initiatives and to get these kind of at least rolling because I think that once you get started, you can even make the case and start putting a dollar amount to you're not just overhead, you're, like you said, revenue protecting, revenue generating.
[00:22:44] Divya Shroff: Yeah. And I almost wonder, right? So I think everyone needs to do an analysis of their organization, right? I'm just looking at some of the comments. Someone said, "We're only paying $23 an hour," right? So like for that individual it could be, okay, not knowing your market or the competitors or whatever, is it, is that a strategic conversation with HR and your CFO or again, your one-up or all the way to whatever C-suite person of, let's look at what the asks are of the role, right? This slide shows how many things are maybe out there where you have to have someone who's tech savvy. They're-- you're also asking to do things like onboarding/orientation. Tom, like I love, like your point about those are two distinct differences.
[00:23:28] Whatever it is are we looking at those factors and are we marketing for the right individual? And or if, let's just say you've hit a flat overhead and this is what the market rate's going to be regardless, because of internal pressures or not, how do you incentivize and create other tangible benefits, whether it's as an organization, we're going to support someone getting their certification, right? That becomes an organizational spend. Is it allowing people to attend either local conferences or national conferences just to better understand? Or is it also being a gateway to other maybe organized leadership development programs, that already exist in your organization, but saying, "Hey, we're not going to overlook people who enter the organization this way"?
[00:24:14] I think that it's got to be such a nuanced sweet spot conversation, which I would challenge anyone who especially is in a leadership role in the medical staff office is you've got to get comfortable in understanding, A, your organization. Are you recognized even at a directoral level along with nursing colleagues, OR colleagues?
[00:24:33] Like where are you falling that you're getting to hear what the organizational message is? What the headwinds are, where the focus is. How do you then take those bullet points and tie them back to what you're doing to either accomplish that goal of the health system or what you could do that is a big ask of your CEO or whatever. And how do you start to navigate that conversation and start using terms like business case? "Hey, let me make a business case that ties into what you're trying to achieve as your larger goal that actually pays it back into my organization, but that pays it forward", right? Like it's starting to, I think, talk that way that allows hopefully to address that staffing constraint and also helping you find the right talent.
[00:25:21] Thomas Heitz: And I think that leads us into technology. But before I let Meghan kick that off, there is a really great question in the chat. Do we think AI will eventually replace MSPs or credentialing specialists? I'm going to say absolutely not. We do not think that. Yes, it may replace certain things that are done today, but I personally think it is going to push our career more into an analyst role.
[00:25:46] Because regardless of what AI can go out and grab and bring back, we all know when you have a provider, John Smith or any provider with a common name, you often get things back that aren't correct. Somebody is still going to have to analyze and look at that data, and I think it's probably going to be even more important to oversee and look and make sure it's correct.
[00:26:08] You guys saw the picture we had at the start that kind of showed AI is getting there we're not really ready to fully trust it for everything. I don't know if there's anything you guys would like to add before we move along, but --
[00:26:22] Meghan Kurtz: No, I agree. But, you should also not be afraid of it of not just AI, but technology in general. So you know, even back to this the staffing shortages, make sure that you're still staying on top of like industry best standards and, be flexible. Maybe move some roles around so that, if you're having a difficult time filling a certain position maybe take a look at that position and see if there's something that you could do with the responsibilities that might be, make it more interesting and for candidates.
[00:26:55] Divya Shroff: I think, to me AI if -- like you said, and I think somebody said in the -- or a couple of people are saying in the chats you need to embrace it, but because otherwise AI is garbage in, garbage out. Where I think the MSP world has the ability to differentiate themselves is to show that higher level.
[00:27:14] Like great, you have taken away hopefully some of the baseline tasks, but now let me show you that higher level thinking of where the sophistication and the nuance exists, right? Because we all know AI, to our picture, is garbage in, garbage out. I don't know if anyone noticed, but the way AI did the picture of the mouse, it was on the keyboard, right? You need, and no one on this webinar knows this, but we did, when we did round one, like it was even more garbled, right? So there is -- you have to understand AI, but then you also have to differentiate where the human factor of AI comes in. I think with AI currently being the hot trend, to Meghan's point, that's the current tech conversation.
[00:27:59] If you show you're a tech Luddite, you're almost out of being at the seat at the table. At least if you show you're willing to embrace it and then have an elevated conversation – yeah-- I think then at least your opinion is going to be valued. You're showing you're embracing it. You're not a naysayer, but you're bringing up healthy components of where the human factor comes in.
[00:28:26] Thomas Heitz: Yeah, there's a comment in here that kind of really gets to this, I think, question about whether AI can make up some of these staffing gaps, but that their credentialing department is being downsized, and their leadership is indicating it's because you're getting automation.
[00:28:43] So in theory, that is speeding things up. But we know from all those initiatives, whether it's standardizing your privileges, standardizing your process, or
