Provider enrollment should be on MSPs’ radars, if not yet on their dockets, according to Carol Cairns CPMSM, CPCS, advisory consultant with The Greeley Company and president of PRO-CON, an Illinois-based medical staff services consulting group, and Maggie Palmer, MSA, CPMSM, CPCS, a medical staff consultant based in Dallas. According to the Credentialing Resource Center's 2016 MSP Salary Survey, 32.1% of respondents reported that their department performs both medical staff services and provider enrollment tasks.

Although the number of female physicians has increased over the years, female cardiologists are still in the minority, representing only 13% of cardiologists. Martha Gulati, MD, chief of cardiology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix and Physician Executive Director for the Banner – University Medicine Cardiovascular Institute.Gulati offers several ways healthcare leaders can attract and retain more female physicians to any specialty:

"Emergency physicians are there for their patients 24 hours a day, every day of the year. We can't say the same for the insurance industry."

- American College of Emergency Physicians President Rebecca Parker, MD, responds to an ad campaign from Cigna encouraging patients to get annual checkups.

The operational process of credentialing a practitioner to participate in a health plan’s network has some similarities to a hospital’s credentialing processes; however, there are also important distinctions. The following table highlights some of the key differences between health plan credentialing and hospital credentialing, using NCQA and Joint Commission standards, respectively.

The healthcare industry has long used credentialing processes, especially in the hospital setting, which must follow the requirements of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), The Joint Commission, and other organizations that accredit healthcare entities. In the health insurance environment, NCQA and URAC are the main accrediting bodies.

Fetal intervention surgery refers to several techniques used to treat birth defects in the womb. These early interventions are performed to improve outcomes for fetuses with complex birth defects, including congenital diaphragmatic hernia, myelomeningocele (the most severe form of spina bifida), and twin-twin transfusion syndrome.

What’s in your compliance code? Though not technically mandatory, best practices and, in some cases, plans of correction, call for hospitals to create a compliance program with a plan or code applicable to its operation.

As a sole therapy, transmyocardial laser revascularization (TMLR) is used to treat refractory angina—a painful condition caused by lack of blood flow to the heart—in patients who have serious heart disease that precludes other surgical options. TMLR may also be used as an adjunct to coronary artery bypass to treat areas of the heart that cannot be bypassed. The procedure involves creating channels in the heart tissue that may decrease angina by promoting angiogenesis (the development of new blood vessels) or by deadening some of the pain-causing nerves in the heart muscle.

The Supreme Court of Florida (the “Supreme Court”) has reversed a controversial Florida First District Appellate Court (the “Appellate Court”) decision. The Appellate Court had held that the federal Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (PSQIA) preempted a provision of the Florida constitution providing patients with the right to access “adverse medical incident reports.” Amendment 7 of the Florida Constitution, adopted by voters in 2004, provides patients with the right to access “any records made or received in the course of business by a health care facility or provider relating to any adverse medical incident.”

CRC members can now peruse all of the online articles from the March 2017 issues of CRCJ and MSB—as well as full-color PDFs.

Did you know that Basic, Platinum, and Platinum Plus members of the Credentialing Resource Center (CRC) have all-inclusive access to the CRC Forums, a modern platform for swapping field-tested tips, tools, and lessons learned on a range of hot industry topics? This new and improved version of Medical Staff Talk—CRC’s legacy email list serv—features direct, members-only access through the CRC site; a sleek design that speeds navigation and encourages in-depth discussion; eight timely content categories that promote productive exchanges and targeted searches; and customizable options for learning about new posts.

If you’re joining us in Austin, Texas, for the 2017 CRC Symposium, why not extend your stay and check out everything the city has to offer?

Let us know whether your department performs tasks related to Medicare and Medicaid provider-supplier enrollment. You must be signed in with your free or paid CRC account to participate.

Have a hot medical staff or credentialing topic you’d like your peers to weigh in on? Send proposed questions to CRC Editor Delaney Rebernik at drebernik@hcpro.com, and you could see your idea showcased in a future poll.  

The 2017 CRC Symposium, held April 6–7 in Austin, Texas, delivers two days of engaging education and training taught by the industry’s top credentialing and medical staff experts. Here are the top five reasons why you need to attend next week's event:

1. Learn from experienced speakers in the industry on hot topics.
2. Network and problem solve with physician leaders, medical staff committee members, chief medical officers, vice presidents of medical affairs, medical staff services directors, medical staff services managers, medical staff coordinators, medical staff professionals, credentialing professionals, quality directors, quality managers, and other passionate industry professionals.
    
3. Earn a vast number of continuing education credits.
    
4. Discover the newest credentialing and privileging solutions by visiting our exhibit hall.
    
5. Experience a one-of-a-kind city. Find out why Austin, Texas, is the live music capital of the world, the destination for some of the best barbecue, and the self-proclaimed weirdest city in the country.