Usually in people's minds, the idea of a physician's credentials connotes education, licenses, and certificates. But that is only a small part of physician credentialing. It also has to do with the performance level of a doctor and how his patients rate him.
It's the patients to suffer from improper credentialing, as it makes it hard to maintain a well-qualified medical staff. If a hospital recruits an under qualified physician, others employed at the hospital will be faced with the issues that come up with him. Because this is a difficult thing, it is hard to get it done before it is too late. Business at the hospital will suffer as a result, or law suits may happen.
To get around these issues, it's important that hospitals keep record of a physician's credentials. This happens by way of an impartial Physician Credentialing Committee made up of other physicians.
This committee must make their decisions based on accepted laws and standards that must be accessible to the community. These include not only a doctor's general practices, but the level of his patient care as well. The exact criteria by which they measure it, however, can vary from specialty to specialty.
Besides increasing the quality of patient care, Physician Credentialing has other benefits as well. For example, it allows the doctor to be a member of insurance networks, including government entities such as Medicaid. Many companies have their own credentialing requirements that doctors must follow to be a part of them.
When the hospital fails to keep track of a doctor's completion of these programs, and they unknowingly put a patient of Medicaid with a physician who cannot accept them because of qualifications, there will be no reimbursement. Contrarily, if patients are not seen by doctors who do have the qualifications, there is the potential to lose large amounts of money.
Finally, a hospital must maintain record of a physician's credentials for the doctor's sake, the welfare of the patients, co-workers, and the entire hospital.
Not only will this aid in preventing dangerous and costly mistakes, increasing employee satisfaction, and raising patient satisfaction, but it could possible save some lives from incompetent or unqualified physicians.