Physicians embrace 1-stop credentialing system

The universal credentialing method eliminates 1.1 million hours a year of physician and staff time previously devoted to completing and sending paper forms.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. Feb. 6, 2006.

Four years ago, a system was launched in two states to help physicians meet health plans' time-consuming credentialing requirements more efficiently. Today, the credentialing program covers all 50 states and Washington, D.C,. and has attracted more than 200,000 doctors.

The Universal Credentialing DataSource service allows physicians to go online and file credentialing information for free through a single application. The form meets the credentialing needs of about 250 participating health plans, hospitals and other organizations. The service has reduced paperwork and administrative costs for physicians who used to file stacks of applications -- one per health plan --that included copies of certificates and licenses to accompany each form.

In the days of paper forms, physicians filled out as many as 17 applications for health plans, said Christopher Dooley, executive director of the Women and Infants Physician Hospital Organization in Providence, R.I. Applications were shipped to doctors, and forms piled up.

"Now we have one application that provides us with all of the information we need," he said.

The Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare, a nonprofit alliance of the nation's largest health plans and networks that started the universal system, said the program eliminates $33 million a year, or 1.1 million hours of physician and support staff time necessary to complete and send paper application forms. It based the savings on figures from a September 2004 Medical Group Management Assn. cost analysis. The CAQH estimates that the service has eliminated 900,000 credentialing applications.