Healthcare staffing
Credential tracking software for healthcare staffing agencies
The packet is set by your clients, not by a regulation, and every client wants a different version. Credolex holds it as dates, reminds you before a start date is at risk, and keeps the document behind each one.
What an agency has to prove, and to whom
Almost none of it is written for you. A hospital under the Joint Commission and a nursing home under CMS both have to satisfy themselves that contracted staff meet the same standard as their own employees, and they discharge that by demanding your packet before the traveler’s first shift. So the rule binding you is second-hand, and it arrives as a checklist from a vendor management system rather than as a regulation you can look up. If your agency holds Joint Commission Health Care Staffing Services certification, some of it becomes yours directly: the two professional references and the primary source verified license are the clearest examples.
The packet is therefore set by whoever you place through (Aya, AMN, Medical Solutions, Fusion), and then each client facility adds to it. Two clients in the same city will ask for two different subsets, in two formats, on two clocks. Below is what the packet contains across the market: roughly twenty rows, three kinds of clock, and only about a third of it traceable to a statute.
The placement packet
| Item | Basis | How often |
|---|---|---|
| RN or LPN license, compact or single state | Law, plus the Joint Commission HCSS standard if you hold it | State renewal, and re-verified at each placement |
| BLS, and ACLS for ICU, ED, telemetry and PACU | Practice | Every two years |
| PALS for paediatrics and ED, NRP for L&D and NICU, TNCC often for ED | Practice | Every two years |
| Tuberculosis, two-step TST or IGRA, chest film if positive | Practice | Within the last twelve months; a film is usually accepted for five years |
| MMR and varicella titers, Hep B series or titer or declination, Tdap | Practice; the Hep B offer is OSHA law | Titers once, Tdap every ten years |
| Influenza, and COVID where the client still requires it | Practice | Every year |
| Physical, or a fitness for duty statement | Practice | Every year |
| Drug screen, ten panel and twelve for some systems | Practice | Per assignment, or every year |
| Background: county seven year, national, sex offender | Practice | At placement |
| OIG exclusion list and SAM | OIG guidance; SAM is law for federal contracts | Every month |
| State fingerprinting where it attaches to the license or registry | Law in California, Illinois, New York and Florida | Once per credential |
| Skills checklist by specialty | Practice | Every year |
| Competency exams: med math, core, specialty | Practice | Every year, or per placement |
| Two professional references | The Joint Commission HCSS standard | Once, often refreshed yearly |
| Education verification | Practice | Once |
| Driver’s license, Social Security card, I-9, W-4 | The I-9 is law | Once; the I-9 is re-verified when a document expires |
| HIPAA, OSHA bloodborne pathogens, and harassment in New York, Illinois and California | Law, item by item | Every year |
| N95 fit test | Law wherever respirators are required | Every year |
| Client-specific modules | Whatever that facility demands | Per client, per placement |
The cost of getting this wrong is not a plan of correction. It is a start date cancelled the night before, a nurse who does not bill that week, and a client who calls the next agency first. The exception is the exclusion list, where the cost is the same as it is for any provider billing Medicare or Medicaid: a repayment demand with penalties on top, which is why that one row is monthly and not annual.
What Credolex holds today
Staffing agency is one of the settings on the signup screen, and choosing it loads thirty rows before you enter a date: twenty-two written for a placement packet, and eight that bind every healthcare employer whatever the building is. Nineteen of the thirty are on the short list you start on, seventeen of them because somebody cannot work without them, which is a far higher share than a nursing home and is right: for an agency nearly every row is a gate on a submission rather than a training topic. Each row names its basis, and most of the packet says “standard practice” rather than dressing a client’s expectation up as law.
The placement packet, as Credolex loads it
| Requirement | Says who | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Nursing license | State nursing practice act | Every two years in most states |
| Basic life support (BLS) | Standard practice | Every two years |
| Advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) | Standard practice | Every two years |
| Pediatric advanced life support (PALS) | Standard practice | Every two years |
| Neonatal resuscitation (NRP) | Standard practice | Every two years |
| Trauma nursing core course (TNCC) | Standard practice | Every two years |
| Tuberculosis test | CDC 2019 · standard practice | Every year |
| Measles, mumps and rubella | CDC ACIP · standard practice | Once, when they start |
| Chickenpox (varicella) | CDC ACIP · standard practice | Once, when they start |
| Hepatitis B offered or declined | 29 CFR 1910.1030(f) | Once, within ten working days of assignment |
| Tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough (Tdap) | CDC ACIP · standard practice | Every ten years |
| Flu shot or signed refusal | CDC ACIP · standard practice | Every year |
| Physical, fit to work | Standard practice | Every year |
| Drug screen | Standard practice | Every year |
| Background check, including the federal lists | OIG Special Advisory Bulletin | Once, when they start |
| Skills checklist | Standard practice | Every year |
| Competency exam | Standard practice | Every year |
| Two work references | Joint Commission staffing services certification | Once, within thirty days of starting |
| School checked | Standard practice | Once, within thirty days of starting |
| Right to work (I-9) | 8 CFR 274a.2 | Once, within three business days of starting |
| Privacy training (HIPAA) | Standard practice | Every year |
| Bloodborne pathogens training | Standard practice | Every year |
| N95 mask fit test | 29 CFR 1910.134(f) | Every year |
Every healthcare employer, whatever the setting
| Requirement | Says who | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Federal exclusion list screening | OIG Special Advisory Bulletin | Every month |
| Basic life support certification | F678 · 42 CFR 483.24(a)(3) | Every two years |
| Form I-9 | 8 CFR 274a.2(b)(1)(ii) | Once, within three business days of the first day of work |
| Hepatitis B offered or declined | 29 CFR 1910.1030(f) | Once, within ten working days of assignment |
| Respirator fit test | 29 CFR 1910.134(f) | Every year, and on any change of make, model or size |
| Bloodborne pathogens training | 29 CFR 1910.1030(g) | Every year |
| Hazard communication training | 29 CFR 1910.1200(h) | Once at assignment, again when a new hazard arrives |
| HIPAA privacy training | 45 CFR 164.530(b)(1) | Once, within thirty days, and again on a material change |
Six obligations appear in both tables: basic life support, the I-9, the hepatitis B offer, the mask fit test, and the privacy and bloodborne pathogens training. The placement packet carries its own version of each, so an agency sees two rows for one thing until the library folds them together. Switch off whichever of the pair you would rather not chase, the way you would any other row.
What it does not do is the half that varies by client. It is one requirement set for the whole agency. There are no per-client requirement sets, so a rule only Cedar Grove asks for is a row you hold on everybody, not a row that reaches the people placed at Cedar Grove. There are no per-placement clocks either: a date is current or it is not, and Credolex does not know which building somebody is standing in when it lapses, so a drug screen a client wants repeated at each assignment is one date on the person rather than one per placement.
What the product does well for an agency today is the three things underneath the packet rather than the packet itself.
Today’s packet as dates, not a folder. Every item above becomes a date on a person, with a status you read at a glance: current, due soon, expired, or never on file. Those are four visibly different states rather than four shades of the same warning, so “can this nurse start Monday” is answered by looking rather than by opening eleven PDFs.
The reminders, to both of you. Email at 30, 15 and 7 days and again on the expiry date, to your coordinator as one daily digest rather than one message per item, and separately to the traveler whose card is running out. The second one is the half that moves things, because the person who has to book the ACLS renewal is not the person reading your dashboard.
The file behind the date. Each date carries the document it was read off and who accepted it, in an append-only log nobody can edit afterwards, us included. Travelers send their own certificates in through a per-person link with no account and no password, photographed on the phone in their hand; the dates come off the picture already filled in, and nothing changes on a record until a coordinator accepts it.
What we do not do
We are not a learning management system. The skills checklists, the med math exam and the specialty competencies still happen where they happen now, in Prophecy or Relias or on paper. Credolex records that the competency was passed, on what date, and when it expires. It does not administer the test or hold the question bank.
We are not a vendor management system. No job orders, no submissions into client portals, no timesheets, no bill rates, no invoicing. If you want something that replaces the VMS, this is not it and will not become it.
We do not verify a credential with anybody. No primary source verification against Nursys or a state board, and no SAM query. Credolex holds the date you checked and tells you when the next one is due. The one check it runs itself is the federal exclusion list: once a month every active person’s name goes past the file the OIG publishes, and anything that matches is put in front of you. A name match is a prompt to check, not a determination. For an agency whose clients expect primary source verification, that verification stays your job.
And Credolex is not regulatory advice. Every basis in the table above is there so you can go and read it; the agency stays responsible for its own compliance and its clients’.
Questions people ask about this
Is there a staffing agency setting?
Yes. It is one of the choices on the signup screen, and picking it loads thirty rows: the placement packet plus the rows that bind every healthcare employer. What it is not is per client. One requirement set covers the whole agency, so anything a single client asks for is added as your own requirement and held on everybody. Say so when you request access, because how many agencies ask is what decides when per-client packets get built.
Can the packet be different for each client facility?
Not today. The requirement list belongs to your agency rather than to the building you place into, so a client that wants twelve of your rows is handled by tracking all of them and knowing which twelve that client reads. It works, and it is more list than any one client needs. Say so when you request access, because how many agencies ask is what decides when this gets built.
Does it verify licenses with the state board?
No. Credolex holds the date you verified, the document you saved and the date the next verification is due, and it does not query Nursys or a state board. It does run one check of its own: a monthly name match against the federal exclusion list, which shows you anyone whose name appears on it. A name match is a prompt to check, not a determination. If your clients expect primary source verification, that stays a thing you do, and we would rather be clear about it now than have a client discover it.
Can travelers send in their own certificates?
Yes. Each person gets a link to their own file with no account and no password. They photograph the card, the dates are read off the picture and filled into the form, and it lands in a queue. Nothing on anybody’s record changes until a coordinator looks at the photograph and accepts it, so the file is still yours.
How is it priced for an agency?
By headcount on the roster, the same as anywhere else. Every person on the roster counts, whether they are on assignment this week or not. There is no setup fee, you can cancel any month, and adding coordinators costs nothing. Book a short call and we will give you the figure for your roster.