Salem Health’s Medical Staff Office is alerting all initial credential applicants to apply as early as possible for their Drug Enforcement Administration certification. We were informed by the Portland DEA branch that initial certification requests and address changes from other states to Oregon may take four to six weeks to process.
The MSO hasn’t experienced this long a delay, historically – it’s usually two to three weeks, but wanted to alert providers in case they heard this might be the situation here.
MSO follows Joint Commission standards, and National Committee for Quality Assurance as delegated credentialers for Kaiser Permanente and Care Oregon, which means applicants must have a current unrestricted DEA certificate at the time their application is reviewed by the credentialing committee. If this certificate doesn’t have an Oregon address, the Medical Executive Committee allows the application to go forward, but as “pending” until the certificate has an Oregon address.
In the meantime, the MSO will seek approval from the Joint Commission and National Committee for Quality Assurance surveyors, to allow us to revise our process to avoid credentialing delays. Luckily, the MSO has not encountered delays to providers with Oregon addresses renewing their DEAs.
Questions? Contact Kelly Aebi at 503-814-3889 or email her at Kelly.aebi@salemhealth.org