This year, the National Association Medical Staff Services (NAMSS) is celebrating 50 years of supporting medical services professionals (MSPs), the experts who help healthcare organizations maintain safe, compliant, and effective provider credentialing and oversight programs.
And over the same period, symplr has spent more than 40 years helping healthcare organizations and MSPs manage credentialing. It all began with Cactus in 1985, one of the industry’s earliest credentialing software solutions.
Together, these milestones reflect decades of progress, innovation, and commitment to a shared mission: helping healthcare organizations make informed decisions that protect patients and support high-quality care.
In many ways, credentialing is one of healthcare’s first lines of defense for patient safety and positive patient outcomes. It helps ensure providers have the right qualifications, training, and expertise needed to deliver safe, effective care.
Credentialing is where symplr started
In 1985, credentialing looked very different than it does today. Back then, the top tech innovation was the release of Windows 1.0, and most people were using floppy disks that could only store 360 KB of data.
Credentialing applications were often managed in paper files. Data lived in filing cabinets, spreadsheets, and disconnected systems. Communication relied heavily on phone calls, fax machines, and manual follow-up. A single missing document could delay provider onboarding and revenue, and create headaches for everyone involved.
Today, symplr’s credentialing solution has evolved into a solution that helps healthcare organizations manage the entire credentialing process from one end-to-end system, including privileging, enrollment, provider performance, and related workflows. Along the way, symplr also expanded its support for MSPs through CVO services, helping organizations manage growing workloads while maintaining compliance, accuracy, and patient safety.
While technology has transformed the tools available to MSPs, the purpose of credentialing hasn’t changed. When done right, it ensures that every provider is qualified, verified, and held to the highest standards, so patients receive the safe, quality care they deserve.
What has changed
The evolution of healthcare has dramatically expanded both the volume of information and the complexity of provider data management. With providers often practicing across multiple facilities, specialties, and networks, healthcare organizations now manage over 2.2 million provider-facility affiliation records nationwide, adding new layers of oversight and coordination to credentialing and provider operations.
The MSP role has expanded just as dramatically. While credentialing remains a core responsibility, today’s MSPs are often expected to navigate increasingly complex regulations, advise hospital leadership, collaborate across departments, and help organizations manage risk and compliance. Their work now touches nearly every stage of the provider lifecycle, including:
- Application management
- Privileging
- Provider enrollment
- Recredentialing
- Provider performance (OPPE and FPPE)
- Peer review support
- Compliance monitoring
- Ongoing provider lifecycle management
As provider data, regulatory requirements, and organizational expectations have grown, MSPs are being asked to do more with fewer resources. At the same time, healthcare organizations face growing pressure to move providers through onboarding faster while maintaining accuracy and compliance, especially as physician shortages are predicted to further strain access to care across the country.
Technology has evolved alongside these growing demands. What began as digital recordkeeping has expanded into automated workflows, real-time provider data management, and increasingly, AI-assisted capabilities that help MSPs prioritize work, identify missing information, and reduce repetitive tasks.
The result is a faster, more connected process that helps healthcare organizations maintain appropriate oversight and get physicians to patients quicker.
What has not changed
For all the advances in technology, some things remain as important as ever. Credentialing is still the first line of defense for patient safety. What healthcare leaders need, more than ever, is reliable, trusted data to make informed credentialing and privileging decisions. And organizations still rely on the expertise, judgment, and attention to detail of MSPs.
Technology can automate repetitive tasks, assist with data gathering, surface information more quickly, and reduce manual handoffs. Increasingly, AI can help identify patterns, organize information, and improve efficiency.
But technology and AI cannot replace human judgment in hospital credentialing. AI cannot evaluate nuance, interpret complex situations, weigh competing factors, or make decisions that affect patient safety and organizational risk. That responsibility remains firmly in the hands of MSPs.
How to support MSPs today
MSPs are navigating familiar challenges that others are facing in the healthcare space. Staffing shortages, limited resources, growing workloads, and increasing complexity in a highly regulated environment are common realities across the healthcare industry. They are often expected to credential more providers, meet tighter timelines, and support additional compliance requirements without an increase in resources to match. As demands continue to grow, many MSPs are experiencing burnout, much like clinicians.
Health system leaders can support MSPs by providing technology and services that offer:
- Better visibility into credentialing status
- Efficient application management
- Connected workflows, and fewer manual handoffs, across the provider lifecycle
- Easier access to accurate provider data
- Automation for routine tasks
- Stronger collaboration between credentialing, enrollment, quality, and HR teams
In doing so, providers can get to work faster and bill sooner.
Looking ahead at NAMSS Conference 2026
The healthcare industry has changed dramatically over the last five decades, and it will continue to evolve. But what should not change is recognizing that MSPs play a mission-critical role in healthcare. Their expertise helps healthcare organizations maintain quality, compliance, and patient safety while ensuring providers can deliver care as efficiently as possible.
NAMSS has spent 50 years advancing the profession and supporting the people behind this essential work. For more than 40 years, symplr has been honored to serve the credentialing community with technology and CVO services designed to help MSPs navigate the demands of their work.
Attending NAMSS Conference 2026 in New Orleans?
Stop by and meet with the symplr team. We’d love to learn more about your credentialing priorities and challenges, and discuss how symplr Provider and symplr CVO can help streamline processes, reduce delays, and keep every stage of the provider lifecycle moving efficiently.