New Primary Care NPs

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I'm currently finishing my PNP (will be done May 2014). I would like to take my boards right away and start working as soon as possible. I was recently speaking with one of the physicians I work with (I'd like to stay at the clinic I work in) and he thought that before working I would have to be credentialed by all insurance companies in order to receive reimbursement from seeing patients, which can take months after licensure. Has anyone does this recently and help me understand the process?

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Specializes in FNP, ONP.

He is correct that you have to be credentialed to get paid, but in my experience that piece only took a few weeks. It consists of applying for a NPI number and then completing reams of paperwork. I never actually did anything other than apply for the NPI number. Someone in some nebulous place completed all the paperwork so we could get paid. My DEA application took, almost literally, forever. I had classmates who had their DEA number in less than 2 weeks. Mine took about 10 weeks for some reason. I cannot recall what they said the hold up was. Someone lost something, somewhere. My sister-in-law is a prescribing psychologist and she had some problems that delayed her prescription privileges for about 4 months. Stuff happens in a bureaucracy. Not always, but often enough that I would't count on going from testing to first paycheck in 30 days.

Good luck.

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Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.

It depends of if you will bill incident-to or not.

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Specializes in FNP, ONP.

Yes, that doesn't exist in my little utopia, so I always forget about it!

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Thank you! I was just concerned and confused when he told me it could take 6 months to get credentialed by insurance companies. I'm going to talk with him about the incident-or-not billing as well.

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Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.
Thank you! I was just concerned and confused when he told me it could take 6 months to get credentialed by insurance companies. I'm going to talk with him about the incident-or-not billing as well.

If you are billing incident-to then you only need your license number, your state CSR, your DEA, and your NPI number. That all takes about a month post-grad or post-job.

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Specializes in School, FNP.

I just started working as an NP in October, still working on credentialing. All my charts are signed off by someone who is credentialed until we are through the process.

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Calibean, do they see the patient quickly after you? Or do they bill as an incident?

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Specializes in School, FNP.

They don't normally see the patient. I consult if I have a question, but they are just reviewing the charts and signing off since I am not credentialed with all insurance companies yet. I think there are a few companies who don't allow just a sign off by a credentialed person so the office is not booking those patients with me yet. I'm not sure exactly how it is being billed to be honest. Just know I need a co-signature on the chart.

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My place of employment set up my NPI,DEA and insurance right when I started. It only took 3 weeks tops. I didn't do but a small amount of paperwork to get it.

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