Today, most hospital credentialing is decentralized and an independent process from hospital to hospital and often from department to department within a hospital (e.g. MSS, PHO, Surgicenter, etc.). While some systems have centralized credentialing across their hospitals employing a single CVO, most do not. Credentialing is a highly redundant and costly process requiring staff, software licenses and maintenance costs, and other administrative costs at most hospitals. Predictably, this places significant compliance burden on physicians and allied health professionals who are required to be credentialed on an ongoing basis.
Most physicians have privileges at more than one hospital and are therefore required to comply with independent credentialing requirements for each hospital where they maintain privileges.
According to a Physician Foundation—Merritt Hawkins survey (Practice Patterns & Perspectives) published in 2014, the average physician completes 17.8 credentialing and enrollment applications each year and allocates 10 hours each week to non-clinical paperwork.
3WON has developed technology to streamline the collection, management and distribution of medical professional data used to credential professionals in order to substantially reduce cost and administrative burden associated with legacy credentialing processes. 3WON consolidates credentialing functions across health systems in order to centralize data management reducing cost and automating many labor intensive functions. Data is managed real-time enabling health systems to monitor compliance more effectively insulating against unforeseen, contingent liability. Custom 3WON “ProStat” dashboards provide executives the ability to manage information more proactively as practitioner status changes. Provider directories are updated with accurate practitioner demographic data ensuring patient access to care. 3WON also indemnifies hospitals and health systems against negligent credentialing tort when acting as the credentialing agent. For larger systems with numerous MSS or managed care staff, 3WON can absorb onsite personnel associated with these functions.
