Insurance is supposed to provide peace of mind. However, in the healthcare vendor credentialing process, medical providers’ requirements regarding certificates of insurance (COI) rarely bring any sense of calm.
Ideally, when a medical supplier is integrated into a healthcare provider’s vendor credentialing organization (VCO) system, that supplier must submit a COI.
Some VCOs allow one auto-load submission of a general liability insurance form that covers all the reps entering the medical facility.
Many VCOs want annual COI submissions of the General Copy but require it to be uploaded under varying requirement titles even though it is the same document. Others require a customized COI submission for every provider whose company name is listed as the Certificate Holder. Some VCOs will run a mass upload of the annual COIs, while others require each supplier rep to upload the COI to each of their individual accounts and wait for the VCO’s review and approval.
Customizing COIs Certifies Administrative Chaos
Challenges in fulfilling COI requests expand exponentially when providers request customization of certificates with only one line or a couple of small items of additional information.
Many facilities can now ask for a customized COI differing from the ANSI Standard for this Company Credentialing Requirements category, requiring suppliers’ credentialing managers to spend excessive hours, essentially creating new documents with redundant information.
These requests for customized COIs often involve naming the facility as additional insured—even though the general contract language between the supplier and healthcare provider customarily states that all recipients are automatically named as additional insured.
Credentialing managers must also spend additional time researching VCO requirements to know what certificates to order from their insurance companies due to a lack of information and incomplete reports.
The process is complicated even further if a VCO allows unverified supplier company name accounts to be created. Suppliers must then verify all VCO Supplier Company Names for document submissions to avoid Company mismatches. This issue of unverified supplier company names in VCO accounts was featured in an earlier C4UHC Blog story, “Standardized Company Names Drive Better Healthcare Vendor Credentialing.”
“We need to understand why VCOs are requesting customized versions of COIs because it is a time-consuming request and why they cannot link automatically throughout the year,” said Janet Darling, Credentialing Manager. “Why can’t we do a one-time annual upload of the general COI for all employees within each VCO? We could eliminate hundreds of requests a year coming to us.”
Annual Renewals Aggravate Year-End Mayhem
These requests for deviations from the standard certificate are often made under a tight deadline to ensure a supplier’s representative gains access to a healthcare center for a delivery or a procedure.
The orders for customized COIs arrive towards the end of the fiscal or calendar year, creating more stress on a timeline already challenged by holidays and staff vacations.
In addition, email notifications from VCOs regarding annual COI renewals are sent out too early to reps when the suppliers’ insurance companies do not allow ordering or providing the final COI until a few days before year-end.
When the COI does become available, suppliers have extremely little time to send to their reps or submit the documents to VCOs, and time for the VCOs to review and approve them. If COIs are not submitted in time for the year-end deadline, reps may be shut out of their customers’ facilities for being non-compliant, immediately placing patient services at risk on January 1.
“When it comes to providers and VCOs requiring customized documents, the potential for errors is enormous, consuming too much time to find solutions,” said Darling. “Mistakes can range from simple omissions and wrong submission addresses to incorrect uploading of documents. Standardizing COI requirements would reduce a tremendous amount of costly labor hours.”
Everyone Wins With A Standardized COI
Standardizing the requirement of a COI with one general form would yield multiple benefits for providers, VCOs, suppliers, and the supplier insurance companies:
Providers:
- Receive a general copy of COI annually as a VCO customer on an annual basis
- Benefit from increased VCO compliance by supplier reps
Suppliers:
- Simplify insurance ordering and submitting process for admins and reps
- Increase VCO compliance by the supplier reps
- Increase productivity of credentialing managers assisting with individual rep verification compliance documents
VCOs:
- Reduce duplicative supplier companies and increase rep compliance
- Decrease time spent on duplicative document reviews when an auto-connect for uploading the supplier COI is created
Supplier Insurance Providers:
- Reduce customized COI orders during a critical year-end process, enabling insurance providers to focus on distributing the general copy quicker to all their suppliers as well as to their thousands of customers outside of the credentialing process.
“Standardization is critical for credentialing,” added Darling. “We need to increase awareness in our industry about how even standardizing the COI documents and processes can benefit everyone. If we all work together, everyone will get what they need when they need it. This seems to be an easy win for all!”
“This builds on the overall efforts of C4UHC to standardize the healthcare supplier credentialing process. Smaller steps, such as standardization of COI documentation provides a pathway to ongoing and subsequent components” said Nancy Pakieser, Executive Director of C4UHC. “It reinforces the criticality of adoption and implementation of the American National Standard for Supplier Credentialing in Healthcare.”
Requests for Customized Certificates of Insurance Cause Mayhem in Healthcare Vendor Credentialing Process
Insurance is supposed to provide peace of mind. However, in the healthcare vendor credentialing process, medical providers’ requirements regarding certificates of insurance (COI) rarely bring any sense of calm.
Ideally, when a medical supplier is integrated into a healthcare provider’s vendor credentialing organization (VCO) system, that supplier must submit a COI.
Some VCOs allow one auto-load submission of a general liability insurance form that covers all the reps entering the medical facility.
Many VCOs want annual COI submissions of the General Copy but require it to be uploaded under varying requirement titles even though it is the same document. Others require a customized COI submission for every provider whose company name is listed as the Certificate Holder. Some VCOs will run a mass upload of the annual COIs, while others require each supplier rep to upload the COI to each of their individual accounts and wait for the VCO’s review and approval.
Customizing COIs Certifies Administrative Chaos
Challenges in fulfilling COI requests expand exponentially when providers request customization of certificates with only one line or a couple of small items of additional information.
Many facilities can now ask for a customized COI differing from the ANSI Standard for this Company Credentialing Requirements category, requiring suppliers’ credentialing managers to spend excessive hours, essentially creating new documents with redundant information.
These requests for customized COIs often involve naming the facility as additional insured—even though the general contract language between the supplier and healthcare provider customarily states that all recipients are automatically named as additional insured.
Credentialing managers must also spend additional time researching VCO requirements to know what certificates to order from their insurance companies due to a lack of information and incomplete reports.
The process is complicated even further if a VCO allows unverified supplier company name accounts to be created. Suppliers must then verify all VCO Supplier Company Names for document submissions to avoid Company mismatches. This issue of unverified supplier company names in VCO accounts was featured in an earlier C4UHC Blog story, “Standardized Company Names Drive Better Healthcare Vendor Credentialing.”
“We need to understand why VCOs are requesting customized versions of COIs because it is a time-consuming request and why they cannot link automatically throughout the year,” said Janet Darling, Credentialing Manager. “Why can’t we do a one-time annual upload of the general COI for all employees within each VCO? We could eliminate hundreds of requests a year coming to us.”
Annual Renewals Aggravate Year-End Mayhem
These requests for deviations from the standard certificate are often made under a tight deadline to ensure a supplier’s representative gains access to a healthcare center for a delivery or a procedure.
The orders for customized COIs arrive towards the end of the fiscal or calendar year, creating more stress on a timeline already challenged by holidays and staff vacations.
In addition, email notifications from VCOs regarding annual COI renewals are sent out too early to reps when the suppliers’ insurance companies do not allow ordering or providing the final COI until a few days before year-end.
When the COI does become available, suppliers have extremely little time to send to their reps or submit the documents to VCOs, and time for the VCOs to review and approve them. If COIs are not submitted in time for the year-end deadline, reps may be shut out of their customers’ facilities for being non-compliant, immediately placing patient services at risk on January 1.
“When it comes to providers and VCOs requiring customized documents, the potential for errors is enormous, consuming too much time to find solutions,” said Darling. “Mistakes can range from simple omissions and wrong submission addresses to incorrect uploading of documents. Standardizing COI requirements would reduce a tremendous amount of costly labor hours.”
Everyone Wins With A Standardized COI
Standardizing the requirement of a COI with one general form would yield multiple benefits for providers, VCOs, suppliers, and the supplier insurance companies:
Providers:
Suppliers:
VCOs:
Supplier Insurance Providers:
“Standardization is critical for credentialing,” added Darling. “We need to increase awareness in our industry about how even standardizing the COI documents and processes can benefit everyone. If we all work together, everyone will get what they need when they need it. This seems to be an easy win for all!”
“This builds on the overall efforts of C4UHC to standardize the healthcare supplier credentialing process. Smaller steps, such as standardization of COI documentation provides a pathway to ongoing and subsequent components” said Nancy Pakieser, Executive Director of C4UHC. “It reinforces the criticality of adoption and implementation of the American National Standard for Supplier Credentialing in Healthcare.”