A federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) certificate is required for all qualified practitioners who write prescriptions for controlled substances. Many individual states also require a practitioner to hold a Controlled Dangerous Substances (CDS) certificate in addition to a DEA certificate. Note that the terminology may vary by state, such as Controlled Substance Registration in Wyoming and Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs in Missouri.

Florida physician Michael J. Hall, MD, was fined $10,000 as part of his settlement with the Florida Board of Medicine after he posted a former patient’s health information on the website Yelp. According to the complaint, in 2015 Hall posted that the patient, identified in documents as C.B., was a fire inspector who “used her badge to fraudulently obtain narcotics and has seen over 28 doctors in Florida for numerous prescriptions, pills and medical services.”

Many medical executive committee (MEC) members take their posts in January, which is right around the corner. During the next few months, it is important to remember that new MEC members shouldn’t be thrown to the sharks. Rather, ease these individuals into their new roles by educating them about their new responsibilities and the medical staff’s expectations of them. By passing on the following information, you can help new MEC members get a jump start this January. The MEC is responsible for:

The Credentialing Reosurce Center Symposium is coming to New Orleans on April 20-21, 2020! We’re introducing exciting new features to this year’s CRC Symposium. We just released the 2020 agenda, which features an expansive array of sessions, including some focused on provider wellness, APPs, and problem practitioners. We’ve also expanded our speaker lineup. Our returning speakers will be joined by some new faces to provide you with insights from celebrated experts and in-the-trenches MSPs and medical staff leaders. Click here to see the full agenda and get to know the CRC speakers.

 New sessions for 2020 include:

• The Many Faces of Problem Practitioners
• Peer Review 2020: A Practical Strategy for Navigating Murky Waters
• CVO vs. MSO Zones: Where Does One Stop and the Other Begin?
• Corrective Action and Negligent Peer Review
• Managing and Supporting Impaired and Burned Out Practitioners
• Developing a New Provider Orientation Program
• Telemedicine: How to Master Credentialing While Meeting Legal Requirements

Succeeding as a medical staff services manager/director requires more than just knowing the ins and outs of credentialing, privileging, and medical staff bylaws. You must also know how to be a leader, deal with stressful situations, manage your staff, manage your time, and delegate work tasks.

As physician shortages grow even faster and patient care needs intensify, more and more healthcare institutions are fortifying their ranks with telemedicine practitioners. While distance doesn’t diminish a hospital’s responsibility to thoroughly vet and assess affiliated practitioners, it can throw a wrench in conventional approaches. One new approach to credentialing telemedicine practitioners is by proxy, e.g., accepting the credentialing decision of the distant site.

An accepted norm in the medical field is that with age comes more experience, and therefore more knowledge. That may hold true—but at what point does old age mean that surgeons can’t do their jobs as effectively anymore? Is there a point where a doctor’s age makes him or her a danger, given a profession where a simple slip of a scalpel or lapse in judgment could mean the difference between life and death?