Question of the Week

QUESTION:        Our Medical Staff Bylaws include a process whereby an individual who does not satisfy one of our threshold eligibility criteria for appointment and privileges can request a waiver.  Only if a waiver is granted by the Board is the individual’s application then processed.  When we write to individuals to inform them that they do not satisfy our criteria — and that their applications cannot be processed — should we also be informing them of the option to apply for a waiver and the process for doing so?

ANSWER:            Your question is a good one because it illustrates the tendency to want to point out additional avenues that individuals could pursue to achieve their goals (in this case, requesting a waiver).  And most MSSPs and Medical Staff leaders want to help individuals and want to make the process easier for everyone.  So, it seems natural to proactively offer up the waiver process in the very letter that informs the individual that they are ineligible for appointment pursuant to the threshold criteria set forth in the Medical Staff Bylaws or Credentials Policy.

What is important to keep in mind, however, is that the waiver process is one that should be used rarely — when exceptional circumstances exist and the individual has shown that he or she is at least as (if not more) qualified than applicants who do satisfy all of the threshold criteria.  To preserve the objective nature of the eligibility process — and the hospital’s and medical staff’s reliance on objective threshold criteria as the bare minimum level of qualification for appointment and — it is important that the threshold criteria be applied consistently to applicants.

While there is nothing patently wrong about informing all ineligible individuals of the fact that a waiver process exists, in our experience, institutions that do so are more likely to routinely grant waivers and to infuse the eligibility process with subjectivity.

Therefore, it is our recommendation that letters informing individuals of their ineligibility not routinely inform individuals of the waiver process.  This does not deny any particular individual the ability to request a waiver (if he or she inquires further about any avenues he or she may have to appeal your decision regarding his or her ineligibility).  But, it also does not invite every ineligible individual to request subjective consideration of their qualifications in lieu of the routine application of the objective threshold criteria.

If the hospital occasionally finds itself with an application from an individual who is ineligible, but who has revealed sufficient facts about the situation which rendered him or her ineligible to indicate that truly exceptional circumstances exist and a waiver might be appropriate — in that case, it may make sense to proactively inform the individual of the availability of a waiver process.