Vendor credentialing systems are how hospitals and clinics track which reps come in and out of the facility. It is something all reps have to deal with. The goal is to keep patients safe and keep unwanted vendors out of the hospital. In this article we will take a look at what medical device sales reps think about vendor credentialing.

What Is A Vendor At A Hospital?

A vendor is a representative that visits a hospital to provide a service or product. It could be a manufacturer that currently has a contract with the hospital. Or it could be a representative from a company that is seeking to do business with the hospital.

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What Is Vendor Credentailing?

The vendor credentialing services make sure that reps have the proper vaccines and background checks before visiting a customer site. In addition, sales rep have to agree to polices and rules specific to each facility. At a high level I understand the value of making sure vendors are meeting the right criteria to come on-site, but the execution of these programs is painful.

Keeping patients safe by making sure vendors are healthy make sense. The problem is these vendor credentialing services have become nothing more than a money grab. The costs slowly creep up every year. Now most of these services cost around $300!

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The hospital credentialing companies try to get reps to pay additional fees to take the HIPPA and safety trainings through their own training portals. In some instances, rather than allowing the company to perform the background check, the vendor credentialing services require that it is done through their own partner services. All of these requirements duplicate efforts and increase costs. This is not good as one way or another these costs get passed along to patients.

If it is so important to scrutinize each and every vendor for safety and health purposes why not scrutinize each and every visitor to the facility. It does not make sense why hospitals put so much effort into documenting every single aspect of a vendor’s health, while random people walk in and out of a hospital every day.

Hospital Vendor Credentialing Companies

• IntelliCentrics Healthcare Credentialing (Reptrax)
• GHX (Vendormate)
• Green Security
• Symplr

Problems With Hospital Vendor Management

According to the Journal of Healthcare Contracting “vendors are unhappy with the current state of hospital credentialing”. The current vendor credentialing programs are not sustainable for a representative that covers a large geography. The hospitals are always adding on additional polices and notices. For example, a hospital may add on a new parking policy. If a representative has not had time to login and acknowledge the policy, their access to the site will be denied. An industry representative that covers multiple states does have all day to sit around managing polices among the different vendor credentialing services. This does not add value for anyone.

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Hospital Vendor Credentialing Requirements

• Criminal background check
• Current flu vaccine
• Up to date PPD (tuberculosis) test
• Hep B Vaccine
• MMR
• Tdap
• Tetanus
• Covid-19 vaccine
• General liability coverage
• HIPPA training
• Safety training

Opinion On Healthcare Vendor Credentialing