Way back when there was purportedly a Vendor Representative in the operating room that became directly involved in a case and caused a problem that resulted in a law suit. So now thousands of professional medical sales representatives are subject to registration, vaccinations, testing, suspicion, escalating costs, restricted access, and an ever growing list of "Vendor Credentialing" companies. The argument for Credentialing began because the hospitals claimed they needed to know who was in their facility and what they were doing. Of course they have every right to have that information. In most cases it was a simple matter of visiting Material Management before a scheduled appointment and signing in. A badge was generally available to fill out and all of it was done on the honor system and often no one in the office needed to be involved. Sometimes there was a check in time and a check out time that required the sales person to return to Materials and sign out. It was a pretty good system.
If anyone ever checked the logs it was unclear, but they were there if someone wanted to keep track. The first parasitic credentialing company to arrive on the scene was RepTrax. This falls under my "Because we Can" view of why so many unnecessary things are done in our world today. The written logs for some unknown reason needed to be computerized. None of the hospitals would have wasted personnel or funds on this effort because it just wasn't that important. But enter stage left: RepTrax. Here was a company that would put a kiosk in at little or no charge to the hospital because they could transfer that cost to the sales representatives and their companies. And Vendor "Credentialing" was born.
At first it was a very simple system of "Signing In". But remember the axiom "Because we Can". As new Vendor Credentialing companies arose and competition ensued, the VC (in my day VC meant Viet Kong or even worse Venture Capital) companies had to find new and better "services" to provide their client hospitals. The first new service was innocuous at first. Each hospital had Policies. And of course the sales representatives needed to read those policies. And since they now had this nifty system to deliver the policies the hospitals got busy writing new policies. Reading those policies may be important for employees of the hospitals, but in most cases are totally irrelevant to the outside sales representatives. In the case of my company we represent products in 22% of the nation. Which equates to approximately 1500 hospitals. All with their own unique policies that change often. But not to worry, the Vendor Credentialing companies sent irritating emails to all of those pesky sales people and MADE them read all of the "important" information! And it didn't cost the hospital a dime. But wait, the VC companies are now having to provide more and more services like Policy Delivery so naturally SOMEONE has to pay.
In addition to the policies, the hospitals now require that all of the vendor sales people be vacinated for everything that they would encounter in Sub-Saharan Africa (we always knew that hospitals were Jungles).
Note: Many hospital have 100 to thousands of the general public entering their hospitals daily as visitors. They actually go to the patients rooms and often touch the patient. Not one visitor in any hospital (other than high risk patient visits) is asked anything about their vaccination status, TB, or if they have read and understand the hospital policies. Remember, Vendor Credentialing is a fraud. The purpose is to Restrict Access. It isn't to protect patients and staff otherwise everyone entering the hospital would be required to meet the standard now required of professional sales people. Point to ONE instance of TB being spread by a sales person in a hospital. "Because We Can" is not a reason, VC is about Restricting Access.
So the hospitals and VC companies asked themselves how are we going to pay for the Vendor Credentialing and the new services the VC companies were constantly inventing to increase their revenue? RepTrax had a simple system of charging $150.00 per year to provide the service that allowed the sales representative to fax in their vaccinations etc. and they would then be available to their hospital members. But that of course was only one revenue model.
Enter Stage Right: Vendormate. Vendormate created a model that charged PER HOSPITAL. It started out to be $25.00. It was annoying, but not too bad. But as always happens with those in the Protection Business they weren't satisfied with a reasonable fee. They invented the "Risk" factor. They will tell you (and I have had voluminous correspondence with them) that the "hospital determines the risk factor". Hogwash. I and no other sales person is any more "risk" to a hospital because they go to the fourth floor, OR, or Cath Lab than any other place in the hospital especially when we don't have patient contact. Make up a "risk" and what can you do? Charge more for it. And that is exactly what they did. As you fill out Vendormates on line form if you answer the questions incorrectly (honestly) when you get to the end you find out that your "risk" factor now costs you $200 plus per year to enter that hospital. The purpose of the higher charges is so that Vendormate can escalate the free services they are providing the hospital all paid for neatly by the professional sales people that enter the hospital. I have asked Vendormate to explain to me exactly what "risk" means and why that risk cost more to process? There of course is no greater "risk" only greater revenue to the VC companies.
If the hospital wants more services like record keeping and reporting then THEY should pay for it. Not the professional sales people. And if there was additional cost to the hospital the entire "problem" of professional sales people and VC would cease to exist.
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