At ABC, maintaining the credentials of certified and licensed individuals is of utmost importance. It ensures that patients receive high-quality care and healthcare facilities comply with accreditation standards.

All individuals should be monitoring their respective certifications and licenses regularly to ensure they are in good standing. For ABC certified individuals, that means they should abide by the Code of Professional Responsibility, pay their annual fees on time, and accrue continuing education credits throughout their five-year cycle. The Patient Care Accreditation Standards require facilities to verify and document that their patient care providers’ certifications and state licenses are in good standing.

Issues arise when facilities submit applications that list individuals who have been suspended due to a lack of CE credits or for not paying their annual fee. If this occurs, we can’t proceed with processing the application. This can jeopardize a facility’s accreditation because all patient care must be provided by individuals who are actively certified/licensed and in good standing. Standard HR.2 requires facilities to annually verify whether their patient care providers are in good standing.

Ultimately, the responsibility of maintaining/monitoring individual credentials lies with the credential holder, but it doesn’t hurt to remind staff throughout the year to keep up with their certification and licensure requirements. You may even want to consider requesting that these patient care providers submit mid-year or annual updates on their progress.

Individuals can sign in to their MY ABC account to check how many CEUs they have earned and still need. They can also print a CE Statement to show all of their CEUs earned in their current five-year cycle or a CEAR Statement to show CEUs earned during a specified time-period. Be sure to utilize the Annual Employee Verification form in our online Resource Pack to help make tracking your employees’ progress even easier! Simply log in to your Facility’s MY ABC account and click the link for the Compliance Kit Resource Pack to access this and many other great templates and forms.