The University of Iowa Clinical Staff Office (UI CSO), established in 1996, addresses the credentialing needs of various managed care organizations, hospitals, and other health care entities.

The verification process begins with a practitioner receiving and completing an Iowa Statewide Universal Practitioner Application, which is available in both hardcopy and electronic template. The form collects critical information regarding education, training, board certification, licensure, hospital privileges, and malpractice insurance. The form also asks necessary questions related to licensure sanctions, medicare/medicaid sanctions, felony convictions, and malpractice claim history. The information collected is then entered into the UI CSO Credentialing database and primary source verified including a query to the National Practitioner Data Bank. All information is held highly confidential, according to the UI CSO's strict security policies.

The information housed in the Credentialing Database allows the UI CSO to provide preprinted forms, applications, and reports. This capacity frees the practitioner from spending valuable time completing multiple forms/applications and decreases duplicative efforts. At recredentialing, the use of a preprinted application or profile means that the practitioner need only review, update, and attest to the information originally provided on the application.

The UI CSO verifies practitioner's credentials using criteria that is compliant with the National Committee on Quality Assurance (NCQA) and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals (JCAHO).

The UI CSO routinely supports the credentialing and privileging processes that take place across University of Iowa Health Care and aims to reduce duplicative efforts and improve the verification process. Contracts with other clients may be establshed on a case-by-case basis.

For additional information contact:

University of Iowa Clinical Staff Office

C123 GH
200 Hawkins Drive

Iowa City, IA 52242-1009

 

Phone Number: 319-384-9294

Fax Number: 319-384-9293

 

Email: CSO@mail.medicine.uiowa.edu

Personal Experiences

"The UI CSO has repeatedly surpassed my expectations. Credentialing the wide range of primary care, specialty, and emergency room physicians and technical staff is a very onerous task in a community hospital. The CSO's responsiveness and timeliness has made life easy for our credentialing coordinator and the medical staff."

—Mike Trachta, CEO, Waverly Municipal Hospital

"The Clinical Staff Office has made a profound difference in our credentialing process. As the first entirely new hospital in the state of Iowa in nearly 30 years, our initial credentialing load was quite heavy. The company we had been utilizing provided slow turnaround times, poor processes, and dismal communication. Since switching to the CSO our turnaround time has been cut in half; the staff is friendly, professional, and always willing to help; and excellent outcomes are consistently provided."

—Steve Long, CEO, Select Specialty Hospital, Davenport, Iowa

"The UI CSO provides highly competent and professional services associated with managed care credentialing requirements. The staff are extremely responsive, dependable, and willing to assist with a variety of requests from contracted payors."

—Megan C. Threlkeld, Account Representative, Managed Care Contracting, UI Health Care.

The Clinical Staff Office has centralized all aspects of the credentialing process for hiring physicians and ancillary personnel in our department and have been a tremendous help in providing updated documentation, keeping me informed of changes, and performing many of the tasks that we performed in our department.  The Clinical Staff Office personnel are dedicated, courteous, informative, efficient, knowledgeable, and I would not be able to perform my job without all of the help they provide. 

—Nancy Schaapveld, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology

“For a clinical department as large as ours, speed, accuracy, and dependability in credentialing are absolutely essential.  The UI CSO provides all this with a staff that is friendly and responsive.  Four stars!”

—Laura Lenz, Department of Internal Medicine

The UI CSO is certified within NCQA's CVO Program for the following verification elements:

• Application Processing
• Education and Training/Board Certification
• DEA Registration
• License to Practice
• CVO Application and Attestation Content
• Malpractice Claims History
• Medicare/Medicaid Sanctions
• Ongoing Monitoring of Sanctions
• Medical Board Sanctions
• Work History