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Physicians and other health providers are now using this industry standard for provider data collection
Hospital/Large Provider Group
Best Practices
Last Update: September 21, 2011
| Issue | Short-term Workaround | Long-term (Future) Fix |
| Providers are unable to enter a future start date in the Work History field. | Providers may enter Future Start Dates in the Practice Locations field. The credentialing coordinator should set a tickler to update this once the provider has joined the practice. | None required. |
| Providers sometimes re-attest without submitting updated supporting documents. | CAQH has created a pop-up reminder for providers to pay special attention to their documents when a date in the body of the application has passed. | Auto-messages will be sent when the DEA, CDS (DPS), State Medical License, or Professional Liability Face sheet has expired. |
| Provider references do not include email addresses. | References must be contacted by phone. | CAQH is reviewing for inclusion in next version. |
| Not all boards for my specialty are available in the drop-down box. | You may select “Other, Not Listed”, and indicate the specific board in the free text Other Interests box at the bottom of the page. | Email new boards to info@caqh.org. |
| A provider is leaving/has left our group, and reminders still come to our credentialing contact. | When a provider is leaving your group, log in to his or her account, and edit the contact information. If the provider does not know the email address of the new group, you may enter his or her email in the contact area. Either way, share the login, password, and CAQH ID number with the provider so he or she may take over the maintenance of the CAQH account. | None required. |
| I’m the credentialing contact for many providers, and my email in-box is full of attestation reminders. | Most email exchanges will permit the user to create a new folder and write a rule that sends all mail originating from a particular address into that folder. Set aside a time once or twice a month to go through the folder to take care of the re-attestations. | None required. |
| Hospital based providers are unable to enter remittance information. | Remittance for the facility must be submitted to the payer separately. | CAQH is investigating adding billing information to hospital based employees in a future version of the application. |
| We have a part time employee whose credentialing application is updated by his other practice. | You may use the Practice Manager Module to update your practice information. Enter the provider’s information in your PMM account, and export your practice information. Instruct the provider to log in, accept the import, and re-attest. | None required. |
| I do not have a forwarding address for a provider who has left our group, but I continue to get emails. How can I stop them? | Re-attestation reminders are sent beginning 2 weeks prior to expiration and ending 6 weeks post expiration. If the provider’s new practice does not assume responsibility for the expired attestation, the emails will stop on their own. | None required. |
| Fax cover sheets don’t list codes for all documents we want to submit. | The help desk can process the document without a code if the title is provided. | CAQH can look at supplementing the document codes on future iterations. |
| My provider doesn’t tell me when his re-attestation is due. | There are two spaces for e-mail addresses in the contact field. You may edit the contact page to include the provider and the credentialing contact’s email address. | None required. |
| I have multiple providers with the same liability face sheet. Can I fax it once, or do I have to fax it for each provider? | At present, the document must be sent for each provider. You may send several copies in one fax, but each provider must have a unique document. | CAQH is working on allowing the provider to upload documents directly to their application through the OAS and PIMM (for bulk uploading). |
| Why do some health plans require a fresh signature each time they re-credential if I’m not required to have my physician sign each time he re-attests? | The CAQH electronic attestation process has been approved by NCQA. Plans requiring a new signature may be doing so at the insistence of a hospital who will not release verification otherwise. You may wish to point the plan to the NCQA FAQ archive for verification that the electronic attestation is acceptable. | None required. |
| One of my providers has retired. How do I close out his CAQH application? | Send an email to the Help Desk with a letter on practice/hospital letterhead with the provider’s name, CAQH ID#, and an identifier such as date of birth or license number, and let them know he has retired. Be sure to include your name, your relationship to the provider and the practice/hospital call back number in case they have questions. CAQH will change his application status to Retired. This same procedure should be followed if the provider passes away. | None required. |