Question: At last week’s Credentialing Clinic, there was a great discussion on the importance (and difficulty) of identifying gaps in an applicant’s hospital affiliation history.  Part of that discussion focused on the new NAMSS PASS^TM tool from the National Association Medical Staff Services (“NAMSS”).  So, what is NAMSS PASS^TM?

Answer: We know from our experience in working with clients on reviewing “red flags” on applications that it can be difficult to verify and confirm an applicant’s affiliation history.  Especially when that applicant has a history of jumping from facility to facility.  NAMSS PASS^TM (which stands for “Practitioner Affiliation Sharing Source”) seeks to tackle this problem by offering medical staff professionals an on-line database of practitioners’ affiliation histories with hospitals, surgery centers, health plans, group medical practices, and other entities for the entirety of the practitioners’ careers.

NAMSS PASS^TM is currently accepting data from hospitals and other health care entities, but estimates that it will take approximately one to two years for a comprehensive database to be achieved.  Once the initial data is provided to NAMSS PASS^TM, contributing entities will be required to provide periodic electronic updates of practitioner affiliation information so that the information in the database remains current.  A date stamp documenting and verifying the exact date when the data was last updated by the contributing health care entity will be provided on all queries.

Check out the NAMSS website to learn more about NAMSS PASS^TM and the benefits it can provide.