HealthStream offers performance learning management solutions to help develop your healthcare staff into leaders and reduce turnover.
View All ProductsHealthStream works with healthcare organizations to create engaging and high-quality training videos for your staff and management.
View All ProductsImprove care quality and save money by making informed decisions about your healthcare facility and staff with HealthStream's reporting analytics solution.
View All ProductsHealthStream's proven methods for the improvement and overall engagement of your healthcare staff foster a positive workplace and increase retention rates.
View All ProductsThe leadership development program from HealthStream helps mold your high-potential healthcare employees into proven leaders.
View All ProductsFulfill compliance requirements with a variety of programs and courseware designed to address critical regulatory requirements as well as educate staff to recognize and mitigate risks.
View All ProductsBy increasing your healthcare staff's focus on quality and safety with HealthStream, they can help to reduce medical errors and readmission rates.
View All ProductsLearn about what HealthStream's healthcare policy management software and how it can help aid your organization efforts.
View All ProductsHealthStream's education helps address diversity, equity, and inclusion within your organization, as well as promoting health equity in the communities you serve.
View All ProductsDeliver custom or industry designed product training directly to patient and resident care environments to reinforce proper use.
View All ProductsTeach your healthcare staff about the revenue cycle and claim management through targeted training and video tools from HealthStream.
View All ProductsIn all areas of resuscitation, from neonatal to elderly care, clinical deterioration is a risk that can be avoided with the help of HealthStream's training programs.
View All ProductsHealthStream's EMS Program offers a comprehensive, CAPCE accredited EMS course library that meets National Registry annual recertification.
View All ProductsNurture the skills of your nurses and medical staff to help mold them into effective leaders with development training from HealthStream.
View All ProductsMake sure your clinicians have the support they need to provide competent care with clinical competency training and development from HealthStream.
View All ProductsHealthStream’s learning management system and comprehensive suite of competency management tools empower your healthcare workforce to deliver the best patient care.
View All ProductsThe suite of healthcare onboarding solutions available from HealthStream aids in nurse retention and improved patient outcomes.
View All ProductsGive your healthcare staff the decision support and skills training they need with the online products available from HealthStream.
View All ProductsHealthStream leverages medical professional development in healthcare by providing staff training programs
View All ProductsExperience standardized and centralized healthcare credentialing, privileging, and enrollment that is smarter and faster than ever before.
View All ProductsAutomated, web-based provider credentialing and enrollment software for growing medical groups.
View All ProductsNCQA-certified CVO verification services for initial and re-credentialing files in an overflow or full-service capacity for healthcare organizations.
View All ProductsSearch, review, and add providers into the Epic provider master file with our Epic app integration, Provider Validate.
View All ProductsFinally, a comprehensive resource to support collecting, storing, and sharing credentialing data with ease.
View All ProductsHealthcare scheduling software designed to optimize staffing requirements & elevate patient care
View All ProductsPrecisely align staffing and needed resources to enable efficient patient flow and high-quality, cost-effective patient care.
View All ProductsHealthStream’s free nurse schedule app, NurseGrid™, is built to help you care for your staff and engage with their specific needs.
View All ProductsMitigate risk and elevate your quality of care. Improving both clinical and business outcomes starts with a smarter, more integrated approach to regulatory training, continuing education and quality management.
Learn MoreThe Telehealth Boom
By now we’re all very familiar with telehealth: the remote provision of healthcare through the use of telecommunications technology. In fact, it is fundamentally changing the way patients receive healthcare and is recommended by many organizations, offices, and urgent care centers as the first step in receiving treatment. Over the past decade, telehealth has grown steadily as an industry. According to Global Market Insights, the market size in 2019 was around $45 billion, but it is projected to grow to more than $175 billion by 2026.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, Americans were slow to pick up on the virtual trend. But when the pandemic hit, the use of telehealth grew exponentially, and for good reason.
Telehealth is safer for patients, as it keeps them from going into areas that may potentially have been contaminated, which is especially crucial for senior citizens around the country. Seeing patients remotely also gives organizations the chance to “see” more patients, helping them scale, and patients benefit by being able to receive more convenient and faster care. But increased adoption of telehealth also poses a fair share of challenges.
Telehealth Concerns
Although telehealth is brimming with benefits, there are several issues involved with delivering it that need attention and clarification. There’s confusion about what’s needed to privilege telehealth providers in terms of requirements issued by states, Medicare, The Joint Commission and other accrediting bodies, private payors, and miscellaneous regulatory bodies. Then there’s the issue with the need to store, share, and maintain information on telehealth providers. And finally, there’s the complexities between providers being privileged to provide in-person care in some facilities, and telehealth in others.
But there’s good news, all these hurdles can be tackled. Implementing a streamlined system that privileges, stores, manages, and shares information seamlessly is key. It’s also critical to stay updated on the regulations that govern telehealth privileging and be aware of the various credentialing options available today.
First and foremost, it’s important to become familiar with the different regulations surrounding the provision of healthcare via telehealth. The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) have outlined necessary requirements known as Conditions of Participation (CoPs) for telehealth credentialing in detail, but here are the basics:
Accredited bodies that have been awarded deemed status include:
With these regulations in mind, you can undertake privileging via several methods:
Credentialing by Proxy
Before 2011, the Medicare CoPs didn’t differentiate between hospital credentialing of providers delivering in-person services versus those who provided services solely via telemedicine. Consequently, hospitals were required to utilize traditional credentialing and privileging processes for all providers, whether onsite or via telehealth.
Responding to industry needs, CMS concluded that those regulations were serving as an obstacle to enabling widespread use of telehealth at hospitals, so a new set of regulations was designed to expedite the credentialing of telemedicine-based providers—Credentialing by Proxy.
Credentialing by proxy allows the hospital receiving telehealth services (known as the “Originating Site” hospital) to rely on the privileging and credentialing decisions made by the hospital or entity providing the telehealth services (known as the “Distant Site” hospital or “Distant Site Telemedicine Entity, or DSTE” respectively), so long as certain requirements are met.
To use credentialing by proxy, the Originating Site hospital must enter into a written agreement with the DSTE. The agreement requires the parties to share information regarding credentialing decisions, as well as periodic updates of provider reviews and assessments. At a minimum, periodic reports must include all adverse events and all complaints related to each telehealth provider’s services provided at the originating site. Hospitals need to ensure that their process meet these requirements:
These requirements are rooted in federal regulations (CoPs), but that’s not all. Hospitals must also be cognizant of state laws regarding peer review decisions, confidentiality, and provider disciplinary actions, in addition to professional review activities under the federal Health Care Quality Improvement Act. It’s important to note that though an organization may enter into a credentialing by proxy agreement, it retains the option to use the traditional credentialing process if preferred.
The key takeaway lies in the sheer potential that credentialing by proxy can offer. If adopted at your organization, credentialing by proxy can dramatically increase the speed and efficiency with which your MSO can facilitate credentialing and privileging of remote providers, saving both time and money, and more importantly, providing expanded care to patients.
Sample of a Credentialing by Proxy Agreement:
According to the American Hospital Association,“Health systems, hospitals and PAC providers must comply with 629 discrete regulatory requirements across nine domains.”
Disaster Credentialing
According to The Joint Commission, a disaster is an emergency that due to its complexity, scope, or duration, threatens the organization’s capabilities and requires outside assistance to sustain patient care, safety, or security functions. Because disasters often mean uncertainty, The Joint Commission Standards states that during disasters, hospitals may grant disaster privileges to licensed volunteer independent providers. The standards for this are pretty simple, it requires that the medical staff bylaws of the organization include a process for approving providers for the care of patients in the event of an emergency or disaster. Once a disaster has been declared, there are a couple of steps that must be taken.
And that’s it, your organization will be ready to go! This expedited disaster credentialing procedure is a sure-fire way to fulfill requirements easily so that you can begin to offer expanded patient care quickly. If your health system is going to need to grant telehealth privileges to providers who are not part of your system, disaster privileging is the way to go.
Traditional Credentialing
If Credentialing by Proxy or Disaster Credentialing isn’t a fit for your needs, you can always follow a traditional credentialing process if preferred. In that case, it’s important to keep in mind that all accrediting organizations require:
Managing Telehealth Providers Within a Health System
Credentialing may be slightly different within a health system. A health system will often have providers who are fully credentialed and privileged at some facilities within the system, but then only provide telehealth services at others. If the privilege delineations at the facility where the provider has full privileges (distant site) are written comprehensively, the provider would not need to be granted separate privileges to authorize the telehealth services they are providing (to the originating sites), as they would already be inclusive in their full privileges. This is because it’s common practice for health systems to utilize the same credentialing and privileging solution, which makes it easy to share information between sites.
Telehealth is Here to Stay
AAs 2020 continues to challenge us, the need for telehealth will only grow and quickly become the norm. That’s why implementing a first-rate privileging and credentialing system designed to work on the cloud is of the utmost importance. If you’re not certain about your organization’s ability to perform proper credentialing and privileging, be it for telehealth or in-office providers, now is the time to act. Implementing an automated system that is comprehensive, scalable, and effective is easier than you think, and better yet, VerityStream will ensure everything goes according to plan.
With CredentialStream you can leverage technology to increase patient volume and satisfaction.
With automated procedures, you will set your organization up to deliver with speed, consistency, and certainty. CredentialStream has everything your organization needs to request, gather, and validate information about a provider. With a continuously updated platform, best-practice content libraries, and industryleading data sets, CredentialStream is the most comprehensive provider lifecycle management solution available. Most importantly, the solution is built to grow with your organization; based on your needs you can add functionality to assist with credentialing, privileging, enrollment, onboarding, evaluation, and network management.
HealthStream’s learning management system and comprehensive suite of competency management tools empower your healthcare workforce to deliver the best patient care.
View All Learning & PerformanceHealthStream offers performance learning management solutions to help develop your healthcare staff into leaders and reduce turnover.
View All ProductsHealthStream works with healthcare organizations to create engaging and high-quality training videos for your staff and management.
View All ProductsImprove care quality and save money by making informed decisions about your healthcare facility and staff with HealthStream's reporting analytics solution.
View All ProductsHealthStream's proven methods for the improvement and overall engagement of your healthcare staff foster a positive workplace and increase retention rates.
View All ProductsThe leadership development program from HealthStream helps mold your high-potential healthcare employees into proven leaders.
View All ProductsWhen you enact HealthStream's quality compliance solutions, you can do so with the confidence your healthcare organization will meet all standards of care.
View All Quality & ComplianceFulfill compliance requirements with a variety of programs and courseware designed to address critical regulatory requirements as well as educate staff to recognize and mitigate risks.
View All ProductsBy increasing your healthcare staff's focus on quality and safety with HealthStream, they can help to reduce medical errors and readmission rates.
View All ProductsLearn about what HealthStream's healthcare policy management software and how it can help aid your organization efforts.
View All ProductsHealthStream's education helps address diversity, equity, and inclusion within your organization, as well as promoting health equity in the communities you serve.
View All ProductsHealthStream offers professional training and education on how to best optimize your reimbursement process within your healthcare organization.
View All ReimbursementTeach your healthcare staff about the revenue cycle and claim management through targeted training and video tools from HealthStream.
View All ProductsLearn about our advanced resuscitation training solutions. Our solutions are designed to help improve patient outcomes.
View All ResuscitationIn all areas of resuscitation, from neonatal to elderly care, clinical deterioration is a risk that can be avoided with the help of HealthStream's training programs.
View All ProductsHealthStream's EMS Program offers a comprehensive, CAPCE accredited EMS course library that meets National Registry annual recertification.
View All ProductsNurture the skills of your nurses and medical staff to help mold them into effective leaders with development training from HealthStream.
View All ProductsExpand the decision-making skills and effectiveness of your healthcare workforce with HealthStream's clinical development programs and services.
View All Clinical DevelopmentMake sure your clinicians have the support they need to provide competent care with clinical competency training and development from HealthStream.
View All ProductsHealthStream’s learning management system and comprehensive suite of competency management tools empower your healthcare workforce to deliver the best patient care.
View All ProductsThe suite of healthcare onboarding solutions available from HealthStream aids in nurse retention and improved patient outcomes.
View All ProductsGive your healthcare staff the decision support and skills training they need with the online products available from HealthStream.
View All ProductsHealthStream leverages medical professional development in healthcare by providing staff training programs
View All ProductsLearn more about HealthStream's Provider Credentialing, privileging, & enrollment solutions.
View All CredentialingExperience standardized and centralized healthcare credentialing, privileging, and enrollment that is smarter and faster than ever before.
View All ProductsAutomated, web-based provider credentialing and enrollment software for growing medical groups.
View All ProductsNCQA-certified CVO verification services for initial and re-credentialing files in an overflow or full-service capacity for healthcare organizations.
View All ProductsSearch, review, and add providers into the Epic provider master file with our Epic app integration, Provider Validate.
View All ProductsMake sure your healthcare staff can schedule out appointments and work schedules with ease using HealthStream's line of software solutions.
View All SchedulingHealthcare scheduling software designed to optimize staffing requirements & elevate patient care
View All ProductsPrecisely align staffing and needed resources to enable efficient patient flow and high-quality, cost-effective patient care.
View All ProductsHealthStream’s free nurse schedule app, NurseGrid™, is built to help you care for your staff and engage with their specific needs.
View All Products