Some of the most common challenges in healthcare credentialing involve documentation and administrative shifts, compliance changes and differences based on site locations, and incomplete or inconsistent information. The main reason these factors make healthcare credentialing more difficult is that organizations often don’t have a standardized way to organize it all.
A formal environment to host compliance training, monitor training progress, and distribute credentialing efforts makes a significant difference. While provider credentialing and credentialing in healthcare, in general, are regulated processes, the systems you use to track their success should also be controlled and easy to manage.
Whether for compliance, obtaining cybersecurity certifications, or navigating general best practices, the right healthcare credentialing software can help healthcare organizations efficiently and effectively achieve and maintain the professional certifications they need.
Keep reading to learn what to look for in the right software.
You Can’t Afford Not to Use Healthcare Credentialing Software
Credentialing automation can save physician practices at least $29,000 per year. It can also save around 3 hours in administrative time manually entering information to complete the credentialing process.
Aside from the monetary savings, using healthcare credentialing software simplifies and streamlines the entire process. This is easily done by allowing for reporting and analytics viewing features, offering the ability to customize your workflows, simplifying regulatory compliance needs, and ensuring that data insights are more accurate. What healthcare businesses can start to expect when using healthcare credentialing software is a higher level of patient trust, an improvement in organizational reputation, and team-wide validation.
Centralized credentialing means:
- Comprehensive provider profiles
- Reduction in incidents of missed verifications
- Alerts and reminders to reduce lapses in the credentialing process
- Monitoring of automated exclusions
Physician credentialing software also helps with extensive documentation and security issues and protects businesses from penalties. For example, any discrepancy within this process could result in a $9,000 loss per physician — it’s important to note that this isn’t only a one-time loss; this is a $9,000 loss per day.
Overall, automating the credentialing process helps reduce process errors and limits incidents of financial loss you may not be able to afford, both financially and in terms of reputation.
Key Benefits of Medical Credentialing Software You Can’t Ignore
Test credentialing software will simplify compliance management. While this is the basis for any type of training or credentialing software, you should still know what to look for to ensure the solution you get is appropriate for your needs.
Prioritize the utilization of physician credentialing software that offers:
High Rates of Efficiency
Medical credentialing software significantly reduces the time and effort needed to manage the steps taken any time you start working with a new provider. Software built for efficiency will streamline internal team collaborations while maintaining complete and accurate provider information. Look for features that would make this more possible for your organization.
Significant Accuracy
With the best credentialing software, you will likely have access to accurate information just by eliminating tedious manual processes. At least 86% of errors in healthcare aren’t reported, and administrative errors alone are one of the primary causes of error in the industry. This is often avoidable by removing human modification to credentialing and administrative material altogether.
Credentialing management software minimizes these mistakes by providing a more consolidated database. This type of database makes tracking information and credential processes more accurate and streamlined.
Simpler Compliance Tracking
Meeting internal and external compliance requirements can seem complicated, but a few ways businesses can stay ahead of this curve during the credential process is to stay up to date with each provider’s information, monitor their accountability, and remove any barriers that could hinder ongoing compliance efforts.
Better Security
Using secure physician credentialing management software helps protect sensitive personal information from breaches. By February 2024, there were at least 24 reported data breaches across the healthcare industry affecting 10,000 patients or more. Just one of these breaches compromised at least 2.35 million records. Many organizations can avoid this by using a well-safeguarded credentialing system.
The Risk You Run by Omitting Credentialing Software From Your Process
Non-credentialed physicians run a significant risk for any practice. Consider that any services a non-credentialed physician renders likely won’t be reimbursable by insurance companies. Additionally, practices are running the risk of medical malpractice suits, significant financial losses, and the chance of having to appeal denied claims.
From start to finish, the entire credentialing process could take months, and although it is time-consuming, the pros of using a credentialing management system outweigh the potential risks a practice is vulnerable to without it.
Aside from legal liability incidents and problems with regulatory compliance, practice managers should be aware that reputational damage is a primary risk, as well as patient safety and operational disruptions. Additionally, difficulty with credentialing shows as a significant process inefficiency which can result in backlogs.
You can start by prioritizing the right credentialing system to streamline the process of obtaining professional certifications and monitoring your credentialing process to avoid these risks.
Physician Credentialing Software: Opting for a Specialized Solution
From board certifications and hospital or clinic privileges to medical license verification, the credentialing process can take up a lot of time. Healthcare credentialing software is a strategic move for any healthcare organization and it doesn’t only streamline your approach to the process but makes staying aligned with your compliance needs simple as well.
If you want to mitigate the chance of avoidable financial losses, patient safety concerns, and negative views on your practice’s reputation, take a look at how using the right software solutions has worked for others.
