A major health-plan recredentialing project

When I resign from my current group, many of my patients plan to follow me to my new solo practice. To accommodate them, I want to maintain my current health plan affiliations-all 36 of them. The prospect of recredentialing with three dozen plans simultaneously is mind boggling. What's the best way to handle the administrative hassle?

Start early. If you're not credentialed when you start seeing patients at your new practice, some plans will refuse to pay you. You'll need at least two to three month's lead time.

You can engage an outside billing service to handle your recredentialing. Or find an experienced, capable person from another doctor's office to take on the assignment as a moonlighter. Or, if you plan to do your billing in house, hire a biller now. She can take on the recredentialing project, start training on your computer system, and possibly help deal with other start-up matters.