Verifying physician licenses: Strategies for staying up to date
Verifying physician licenses: Strategies for staying up to date
Tips for making sure doctors are legit
It might seem to be common sense to assume that physicians keep their licenses up to date. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Much like everything else in the world, from getting one’s car inspected to filing paperwork on time, some things fall by the wayside.
Whether it stems from poor organization or time-management skills, or in more serious cases, problems with the medical board, some doctors are practicing without current licenses. How does a home health care agency make sure that it’s doing business with qualified, licensed medical practitioners? A few steps and a little organization can make sure you never find yourself working with an "expired" physician.
Verifying currently licensed doctors, says Michele Quirolo, president and CEO, VNA of Hudson Valley in Mount Kisco, NY, is a Joint Commis-sion on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) issue, and as such, all home care agencies should be collecting expiration dates and generating reports prior to those days for follow-up.
In that vein, says Greg Solecki, vice president of Henry Ford Home Care in Detroit, his agency has a three-page policy that deals with incoming referrals and physician credentialing. "This was an area of concentration during our JCAHO survey and I was so glad we were prepared."
Henry Ford’s approach to keeping track of physicians’ licensure status attempts to balance many demands and rules with the agency’s desire to protect itself and its patients through adherence to a policy, he says.
"If the physician is a Henry Ford Health System affiliate, which includes all the network physicians who participate in the Health Alliance Plan — our system’s 650,000-member HMO — we assume the credentialing is already handled by the system," Solecki says. "For physicians who fall outside these parameters, we either call the state to verify or go on line to verify. If we notice that the physician’s licensure will be expiring soon, we notify the branch office to check again upon recertification of the patient’s plan of care."
According to Susan Johnsen, RN, MSN, director of clinical operations and services for Gentiva Health Services in San Bernardino, CA, the Internet is an excellent tool for keeping track of license status.
"Depending on your state, licenses can be verified on line at www.docboard.org. It’s up-to-date and simple," she says. Johnsen’s agency prints out the listing and keeps it on file, showing the day the license was verified and the doctor’s status on that date.
Set up a tickler file for your physicians
One home care staff member says her agency keeps a tickler file on all physicians it deals with on a regular basis, and a month before the doctor’s license is set to expire, the agency runs a check. She says her state hospital association’s web site is an excellent resource to check up on new physicians to the system as well as changes to licensure requirements.
Still another home care employee says that in Indiana, every licensed professional is listed with the State Health Professions Bureau. Once a year, for about $300, her agency purchases a computer readout of every physician and uses it as a reference. The agency subscribes to an on-line verification service that in addition to a small annual fee, charges about $1 per verification, she adds.
If the Internet isn’t quite your agency’s speed, manual labor does the trick as well. Use part-time help or even hospital volunteers to go through the list of doctors and accompanying information (licenses, addresses, etc.), and call the doctor’s office to verify that the information is up-to-date.
[For more information, contact:
• Susan Johnsen, RN, MSN, Director of Clinical Operations and Services, Gentiva Health Services, 268 W. Hospitality Lane, #103, San Bernardino, CA 92408. Telephone: (909) 889-5598.
• Michele Quirolo, President and CEO, VNA of Hudson Valley, 100 S. Bedford Road, Mount Kisco, NY 10549. Telephone: (914) 666-7079.
• Gregory P. Solecki, Vice President, Henry Ford Home Health Care, One Ford Place, 4C, Detroit, MI 48202. Telephone: (313) 874-6500.]
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