NMSC ensures Reservists practice medicine

NMSC's Centralized Credentialing and Privileging Department (CCPD), the host of the ECOMS/DS, has a unique mission of supporting the Navy Surgeon General/Chief, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery in the management and maintenance of Individual Credential Files (ICFs) for the Navy Reserve healthcare providers.

The credential files contain the documents that Reserve Navy medicine medical providers must have to provide health care. CCPD maintains the ICFs for licensed independent practitioners, including physicians, dentists, nurse practitioners and other allied health caregivers. CCPD also maintains the individual professional files for Navy Reserve clinical support staff such as professional nurses and dental hygienists.

CCPD uses this system to grant privileges to more than 2,000 healthcare providers serving across the Navy Reserve, ensuring providers have the proper education, training, licenses, certifications and current competency and skills within their chosen clinical specialty.

"Having the centralized credentials files here at NMSC is like dealing a deck of cards," said Sandra Banning, CCPD's department head. "We hold all the cards (credentials files), and we deal them from here via electronic credentials transfer briefs. We know where the surgeons are located, we know where all the family physicians are located, and we know where the clinical support staff are located."

Banning said Navy medicine is better served by keeping every provider's credential file in one location thereby minimizing delay in the credentialing and privileging process.

During the June ECOM/DS meeting, members spent the day discussing and reviewing the credential files before making their recommendations to NMSC's Chief of Staff William Lorenzen, the sole privileging authority for all Navy Reserve component providers.

The ECOM/DS was formed in 1993 after then Navy Surgeon General Vice Adm. Donald Hagen decided to centralize all the reserve medical providers who need to be privileged or critical support staff in one location. This critical mission belonged to the Naval Healthcare Support Office located in building H2005, which later transitioned to become NMSC in November 2005.

"Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the early 1990s let us know that at the time we couldn't effectively identify our Reserve component medical assets. For example, when physicians needed a billet they were often placed into any physician billet regardless of their specialty." Banning said. "When Desert Shield and Desert Storm occurred, we needed to know where our assets were and how they were distributed. CCPD helps BUMED reach that goal."

At the conclusion of the monthly ECOMs meeting, NMSC's chief of staff has a number of applications and endorsement pages requiring his endorsement. After signing, the medical and dental providers are notified their privileges have been approved for the next two years, at which time, the entire cycle begins again.