Professional health care providers in direct contact with patients have been required to be licensed and credentialed demonstrating current competencies of quality and safe healthcare practice. Should similar licensing and credentialing requirements be imposed on collaborative workers in the health care industry who may not be directly serving patients (e.g., business office personnel, CEOs, CFOs, or other administrators)? Why or why not?Collaborative health care workers should not be generally required to obtain similar licensing and credentials as their direct-patient care provider counterparts for two main reasons: redundancy and excessive costs First, requiring collaborative health care workers to obtain licensing and credentialing similar to direct patient care providers would be redundant because some collaborative health care industry executives who perform administrative tasks that do not involve direct patient care already possess professional licensing and credentials by virtue of their current occupational status and previous work experience (e.g., physicians or advanced practice nurses) (Kash, 2016), Likewise, collaborative health care executives who are certified public accountants or attorneys at law are already credentialed and licensed for practice and are typically members of national professional associations (Kranacher, 2012).
The second reason...
There are other costs involved in this scenario as well, including most especially the chilling effect that such an onerous requirement would have on recruiting otherwise qualified collaborative health care workers who would likely view such a requirement as not being worth the "bang for their buck" in terms of their investment of time and resources to secure a position that does not pay a commensurate salary. In other words, talented executives and administrators who might be attracted to a career in collaborative health care might well reconsider their occupational choices if these positions required licensure and credentials that were not required by other sectors.
Question 2.
Credential requirements have gradually increased in all sectors of the health care arena over the past decades. If this trend continues, for how long will health care organizations remain sustainable? Why? What steps should health care administrators take to…
