To assist hospitals in credentialing physicians during the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Practitioner Data Bank ("NDPB")—the federal clearinghouse for adverse action reports against physicians—has announced it is waiving query fees. This waiver is retroactive to March 1 and goes through May 31, 2020.
The goal of this waiver is to expedite informed decision-making during pandemic about licensing, hiring, and credentialing, according to David Loewenstein, Director, Division of Practitioner Data Bank Bureau of Health Workforce, at the U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration. The NPDB is service of HRSA.
Under federal law, hospitals must query the NPDB when an individual applies for staff appointment or clinical privileges and again every 2 years when medical staff members seek to renew those privileges. Hospitals must also report any time a physician undergoes a restriction in clinical privileges lasting more than 30 days, or when a physician resigns while under, or to avoid an investigation by the health care entity where that physician has privileges. Failure to report may result in fines and loss of federal immunities for professional review actions.
Entities will be issued query credits for all queries performed from March 1, 2020, through the implementation of the waiver. The waiver includes one-time and continuous queries. An entity must be registered with NPDB to query and may only query on individuals with whom there is an existing relationship. These include an employment affiliation agreement, a physician application for new or renewed privileges, or if the physician is undergoing professional review activities. Fees for self-queries are not waived.
NPDB will conduct a teleconference this Thursday, April 23, 2020, to further discuss the waivers and related matters. Details may be found here . A set of related slides can be found here.
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