Credentialing is the intake, vetting, and adjudication of medical professionals to check education, licensing, certifications, etc. These artifacts are attached to a person through a case and once adjudicated, afford the employee or contractor certain privileges (e.g. patient care, medical practice, law enforcement, etc). Credentialing activities reviews occur initially during the onboarding process, but continuous evaluation occurs throughout the professional’s tenure at an agency.  

The onboarding process for most federal agency employees and contractors is relatively straightforward. It starts with an intake process (e.g job application, Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) submission, etc), an initial suitability determination, forms completion, etc culminating in the first day of work. The standard onboarding approach works in most cases, but in the case of medical professionals (or other jobs that have a credentialing process), there is often a separate, parallel, and disconnected workflow.  

Why do agencies struggle with onboarding medical professionals and efficiently processing credentialing, privileging, and enrollment tasks required to provide patient care? In addition to the separate workflow mentioned above, processes are often manual and include cross-departmental touchpoints and approvals. Limited automation and the ability to measure fulfillment progress throughout the process negatively impacts the overall new hire experience, credentialing compliance, speed to mission, etc. 

Looking at the process holistically, it becomes apparent that the intake, vetting, and adjudication activities for credentials are analogous to the intake, vetting, and adjudication activities for Personnel Security.  

A ServiceNow based case management solution is a flexible construct that can be configured to manage credentials as easy as background investigations, adjudications, and clearances. Using ServiceNow allows agencies to seamlessly integrate credential management workflows with other HR services such as Onboarding, Talent Development (especially the capture and reporting on Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits), Performance Management, and Exit Clearance workflows resulting in an end-to-end integrated process for employees and contractors.  

From a compliance perspective, the implementation on a common platform provides process standardization, ensures alignment with agency policy and federal health care regulations, provides robust logging and audit capabilities, and makes reporting significantly easier. With experience in both Personnel Security and Credentialing Case Management, we are uniquely positioned to help agencies implement both solutions.