Becker's ASC Review

46 Quality & Accreditation H ealthcare facilities, such as ambulatory surgery centers, need to double down on physician credentialing to keep their patients safe and their business thriving. You need to know as much as possible about the staff at your facility before letting them take care of pa- tients, says Sharon Kimbrough, CPCS, CPMSM, manager of medical staff services and credential- ing at Surgical Care Affiliates. Here are seven ways for ASCs to avoid physician credentialing errors: 1. Do not allow physicians to book a case before credentialing is completed. Accord- ing to Marcy Sasso, CASC, of Sasso Consulting, typically surgeons call a center and want to do cases there right away, but you have to wait until they have the right privileges approved. "Letting a physician slide because they want to bring a case tomorrow is not a good enough reason to permit the rules to be bent," she says. ASCs need to show that their governing body has approved the new surgeons or procedures. Physicians sometimes call the medical director to ask for an exception and too often an exception is made. 2. Complete every step of the credential- ing process. The steps typically include gath- ering all required documents, sending those for committee review and then bringing it to the ASC's governing body for approval, says Ms. Sas- so. The process time frame may be different for different centers. Having a checklist in place for whoever does the ini- tial credentialing is the key to ensuring that noth- ing is missed. ASCs must also hound physicians for the necessary documents, as they often want to gain privileges with promise to give in documents later. "Follow the guidelines that the governing body has put into place and outlined in the bylaws or policy and procedure manual," says Ms. Sasso. 3. Close all gaps in an application. Some- times physician credentialing applications may have gaps, such as missing or unverified pieces of information. "These could be as small as the applicant forgetting to confirm something or it could be bigger. We need to investigate fully," says Ms. Kimbrough. Leave enough time in the credentialing process to double-check and cross- reference everything. Credentialing is Key — 7 Ways to Avoid Mistakes & Keep Patients Safe By Anuja Vaidya Marcy Sasso

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