We all know that there are a lot of extra costs that go into healthcare besides just what we pay for insurance. Medical malpractice is a huge issue, whether there was malpractice or not. So what are hospitals doing these days to help with all of these extra costs in healthcare?

One big step that a lot of hospitals have taken is medical staff credentialing. If you’ve never heard of credentialing, here’s the basic idea: before a doctor or physician can perform a procedure in a hospital they have to have the credentials to do so. So basically it’s a way that the hospital can make sure the doctor is really qualified to do what they are trying to do.

So how does this help the healthcare system? Well, there are a couple of ways this helps:

First, it cuts down on patient injury by real malpractice. Credentialing keeps unqualified doctors from doing a procedure they shouldn’t be doing. If you don’t have the credentials, you don’t do the procedure.

Secondly, it saves on time and expense of investigations. There is a lot of money lost by taking the time of healthcare professionals to track down what happened and why. If there are less incidents, there is less cost.

There are other reasons as well, but these are some of the main reasons why credentialing is a good idea. If any hospitals are not currently using this type of system, they really should.

The other great thing for hospitals is that there are companies that have developed software that will help them to track the credentials that a doctor has. This way they don’t have to run to the filing cabinet and waste time, they can pull the file up immediately and know whether a doctor is qualified or not.

While medical staff credentialing is not the one thing that will fix the extra costs in our healthcare system, it can definitely help. With costs going up every year, anything hospitals can do to reduce the cost of malpractice is a good thing.