Don’t let your staff tell you they are busy copying and faxing credentialing information for the new doctor. Have you heard of CAQH? If you haven’t, you should. Your credentialing staff should be working with the folks at CAQH Proview to keep a central location of all of your work history, your malpractice claims and everything else that the insurance companies need.
There should be no need for months of delay in pulling the information together. Of course getting the insurance companies to actually credential you, that is completely different. Their delays of 3-6 months can seriously affect your cash flow. Keep track of your applications and process of adding you to their panels is a time eating soul crushing process, but putting your information together and submitting it should not be a problem.
Make sure you update your NPI information. Too often we see physicians with old outdated information on their NPI files that they never clean up. Then it follows them and all those pesky online databases have old outdated information on them. Also, never give out your login information and always keep it current, because if you forget it, you will be on the phone with the federal government confirming the model of car you owned in high school or the approximate mortgage payment on the house you lived in in residency. The NPI is your key to all of your tracking (although some insurers cling to your TAX ID as an identifier). The NPI is also your gateway to the PECOS system.
If all of these words and acronyms are confusing, it might be worth your while to call in professionals and we can guide you through the process so that your cash flow is not unexpectedly delayed.