As a Locum Tenens recruiter, it can be challenging to build a healthy candidate pipeline and then have to vet each candidate. The time it takes to conduct interim credentialing and then full credentialing can be a lengthy, time-consuming process. As a recruiter, you are trained to recruit candidates for your clients. Credentialing companies are trained to vet candidates; so why not leave this portion of the job up to an experienced counterpart who may yield more thorough results? It saves you the hassle and ensures your candidates are always of the highest quality.
Let’s talk about the top 5 key credentialing issues for locums.
1. Gathering Documents
Often, physicians lose important documents. These documents include copies of licenses held, malpractice insurance face sheets and sometimes even their diplomas. Gathering these items is a tedious process. Most times the physician does not have the time to gather these documents. Hiring an experienced credentialing company with the expertise in obtaining these type of documents can save an immense amount of time in the locums background check process. These experts know exactly how to go about obtaining these lost documents and replacing them as quickly as possible.
2. Licensures & Primary Source Verification
Verifying licensures can be extremely time consuming. Some physicians are licensed in multiple states and international candidates have also been licensed in foreign countries. A license verification will need to be performed on each of these licenses to ensure no administrative action was ever taken against any of these licenses.
Conducting full primary source verification on a candidate is also time consuming. Hiring an experienced credentialing company can reduce the time it takes to complete this process, as they know exactly where to obtain the primary source information. Plus, credentialing companies typically have the necessary third party PSV accounts already established for quicker reporting.
3. Malpractice Claim History
A malpractice claim history query will need to be ran against every malpractice policy the physician has ever carried. Often physicians do not realize how important keeping a copy of their malpractice face sheet is. A credentialing company can assist the physician in finding and obtaining all insurance information and obtaining copies of all face sheets. Then the credentialing company can run the queries to request malpractice claims history to ensure no malpractice claims have been reported. If a malpractice claim has been reported, the credentialing company can get the necessary details from the physician and the insurance company.
4. Background Check
A national background check will be required for any locums physician. Because credentialing companies have contracts with background companies, you can avoid the hassle of having to run the background yourself. Simply contract the credentialing company to complete the process and sit back and wait for the results.
5. Results Delivery
Results are delivered to your agency in a neatly packaged file which contains every item you will need to successfully place this candidate into a locums contract. A credentialing company will also be able to handle hospital and payor credentialing should you decide your agency needs to complete these items.
As experts, credentialing companies store all of your candidate’s data in a system where it can be accessed by you when needed.
As a recruiter, do what you do best. Leave the vetting of candidates to the professionals at a credentialing company. Don’t chance missing something that could potentially cost you a contract or your company’s reputation.
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Cynthia Young, the former CEO of STAT, is a national billing, credentialing and practice management consultant. STAT is a U.S.-based, national provider of credentialing, payor enrollment, rate negotiation, and other credentialing related services.