Industry Insights

New Mantra: Don’t let the little things fall through the donut hole

Over a baker’s-dozen years’ worth of experience (and now I need that many donuts), and my most pressing questions today are still:

“St., St, or Saint?”

“MD or ‘M.D.?”

“Do we want to use Address Line 2?” (Good grief, NO!)

“Who in the world is Melisa, and why does she have all the postal data?”

Why are these questions more important than what we’re going to do about whatever new standard The Joint Commission is currently fixated on?

Because somebody higher than my pay grade decided we’re merging my Southern Region credentialing database with our Western Region’s database. Fewer databases = less time duplicating data entry, and one less place to run reports from. Can’t lie, good idea.

Yet, now it’s time to figure out standards.

I like ‘MD’, their database has ‘M.D.’ “Figure it out before you merge,” I’m told, “so we don’t have dirty data.” Alright, alright. I agree with that too! Dirty data means time wasted cleaning reports, which staff could spend on quality credentialing; and quality credentialing protects patients.

‘Mastering’ and ‘mapping’ are words I thought belonged to the IT side of the basement, not the Medical Staff side of the basement. (Why are so many MSPs housed in the basement anyway? Is it because Mama and Papa Bears are associated with cave-like dens? That’s what I’m going with…) Now those words are part of my daily life.

◉ Mastering tables so we have one golden record to rule them all! Like we’re on some epic quest, and ‘St’ will be engraved on a ring for each data entry person to wear so they never accidentally enter ‘Saint’.

◉ Mapping fields so when we import the Western Region’s data, ‘M.D.’ doesn’t end up landing in the date-of-birth field. “Uhm, I’m sorry Dr. Jones, but what era was ‘M.D’ and can you tell me what moon-cycle you were born in?”

Do it right up-front, and hopefully it goes smoothly. Ha…Smoothly + med-staff-anything! We’re MSPs so that’s pretty funny, but I’m going to trust in this one. “Don’t let the little things fall through the donut hole” is becoming my mantra.

We don’t rush credentialing; we don’t rush data mergers. I’m not going to generate a report for MEC in a few months just to see that every physician has ‘DNP’ listed as their medical education degree. Oh, I shudder to think of that reaction. The doctors may love their ARNPs, but they also earned their ‘MD’ and ‘DO’ degrees. And exactly which one of our lucky staff would get to clean up that hot data mess?

It’ll all work out. My eyes might be strained from rolling, I may be tired of explaining provider data to the IT and project management resources, and my Western Region cohorts and I may need to have a night out to discuss who wins the rights to certain table ownership – but it’s going to be a good thing in the end.

Oh, but seriously though, whoever picked the project manager that doesn’t know the difference between a practicing degree and an education degree owes me way more than a donut.

By Cassie Kana Carter

CPMSM, CPCS

Cassie is an expert in the field of Master Data Management (MDM) and Provider Credentialing in Healthcare. She is the recipient of the 2018 HCPro Credentialing Resource Center Case Study Award for Medical Staff Professionals excellence.

A dual-certified professional, Cassie brings over 16 years of experience working in multi-state Medical Staff Credentialing, Payor Enrollment, and Master Data Management.