Credentialing is the process by which hospitals and virtually all other healthcare facilities verify that healthcare providers have the required qualifications, training and skills to provide patients with the highest level of care and ensure patient safety. It will be an important, and constant requirement throughout the four years of medical school and, subsequently, your career as a practicing physician.

Credentialing documents include personal identifying information (e.g., driver’s license, student ID) immunization records, background checks, drug screen, compliance training documentation (e.g., HIPAA, OSHA training, BLS), letters of academic standing and site-specific required documentation.

As an M1 you will not be seeing patients in the hospital or other clinical practices. However, as part of the Community & Population Health curriculum, which runs throughout years 1 and 2, you will be working with various community partner organizations to provide basic healthcare services, such as health screenings, to the populations they serve. These partner organizations also want to ensure the safety of their patients; therefore, they also require basic credentialing documentation including immunization records, background checks, drug screens, etc.

At the AU/UGA Medical Partnership credentialing documentation is uploaded and stored in E-Value, our own (separate from the Augusta Campus) secure, online student credentialing portal and, for some sites, uploaded to ACEMAPP, a separate credentialing platform.

An account will be created for you using your AU email address. You will receive an email with login information and instructions for setting a password. If you don’t see this email CHECK YOUR SPAM FOLDER! You will use this account to store your credentialing information for the duration of your time here at the Partnership. You will be responsible for correctly uploading the required documentation and ensuring it is up to date. To log into E-Value go to: https://www.e-value.net/login.cfm

An account will be created for you in the spring of your M1 year. When your account is created you will receive an email from ACEMAPP with login instructions. The link to validate your email and set your password expires in 7 days so you should log in and set up your profile as promptly as possible. If you already have an account on ACEMAPP you will receive an email requesting you add an affiliation to the Medical Partnership.

The AU Student Health System portal is a separate system that does not communicate with E-Value and neither our credentialing office nor our partner clinical sites have access to it. To meet

Athens campus requirements and have your immunization records be visible to our partner sites they must be uploaded to E-Value. Eventually these will also need to be added to ACEMAPP.

Yes, you need to load all updated documents including your Advantage background check and drug screen, your updated TB test, and other items you will complete during M3 orientation onto both credentialing platforms as some sites use EValue and other sites use ACEMAPP.

Your background check and drug screen report must be uploaded to both the background check tab AND the drug screen tab.

Piedmont and St. Mary’s site-specific documents completed in ACEMAPP do NOT need to be loaded to EValue as these hospitals no longer use EValue for credentialing.

For St. Mary’s and Northside credentialing, you will have to upload a PDF file of your background check and drug screen as you do in EValue.

Other sites use the direct interface between ACEMAPP and Advantage Students, so you do not have to upload your background check and drug screen as you do in EValue. Sites that use the direct interface will have a ‘Vendors’ window through which you can link your ACEMAPP account to Advantage. You will also have to share your report in Advantage Students with the site.

For step by step instructions on how to link your Advantage account to ACEMAPP see the training video on the ACEMAPP website at: https://collaboration.acemapp.org/kb/120?q=advantage

Only the credentialing office staff has access to all student information stored in E-Value. Community partner clinical sites have access to individual student accounts on E-Value or ACEMAPP as needed.

Our clinical health partners use the photo to print your ID badge.

You do NOT need to provide a background check as an M1. The CERTIPHI background check provided as part of your medical school application will be uploaded for you on to E-Value.

M2s-M4s will need to complete a yearly background check and drug screen through Advantage Students. Background checks and drug screens are required by several of our sites. You will not be allowed to participate in clinical activities at those sites if your background check and drug screen have expired or expire while on that rotation.

It is highly recommended that you get your background check and drug screen done in early May to avoid having the results expire during the academic year when you’re busy with clinical responsibilities.

Advantage Student instructions (including a link to the website) can be found on the E-value homepage.

Advantage is a nationwide company as long as you have access to the internet you should be able to access their website, submit a request for a background check and schedule a drug test at a testing center near you.

Both are accepted by our sites, so whatever is easiest for you!

No, these can be done at the health center, your PCP, minute clinic at a chain pharmacy, or a clinical testing lab (e.g., Quest Diagnostics).

This is very common! Contact your health care provider to schedule the appropriate boosters and obtain new titers ASAP. This is especially important for the Hep B vaccine series which can take several months depending on the vaccine.

Sites require access to documentation 6-8 weeks in advance to give them enough time to verify and process the paperwork for each individual, enter them into their systems, generate IDs/badges etc. Keep in mind credentialing coordinators are typically processing paperwork for a large number of individuals, including attendings, students from other institutions and other healthcare professionals. In addition, some sites require approval from their Medical Executive boards who may only meet once a month. It is your professional responsibility, and a matter of professional courtesy, to submit documents in a timely manner to allow the credentialing coordinators to do their jobs.

As noted above, sites can take up to 4-6 weeks to process the credentialing paperwork for students. While we do our best to avoid it, last minute schedule changes and site reassignments can and do happen. Credentialing students at all our main partner sites, in advance, ensures that if a student does need to be reassigned, they can stay on schedule instead of having to wait for credentialing paperwork to be processed which would delay the start of their rotation.

As an M1, if credentialing requirements are incomplete, you may or may not be able to participate in Community Health related curricular activities.

As an M2, if your documentation is incomplete, you may not be credentialed in time to participate in the first of your scheduled hospital visits.

Later, as an M3/M4, you risk delaying the start of your rotations if the site has been unable to complete their credentialing process.

This may happen if any of your documents were uploaded incorrectly under the wrong tab. Credentialing coordinators can only access the relevant fields in E-Value when reviewing your documents. If a required document is not loaded under the correct tab, the coordinators cannot see it and your credentialing will be delayed.

NOTE: all titers/immunizations must be uploaded under the ‘Student Immunizations’ tab.

This will be done as part of your M3 Orientation to ensure it lasts the entirety of your M3 and M4 years.

This is an annual requirement. We are working with the UGA health center to do an onsite QGold day at the Medical Partnership in May. Please be alert for announcements as we get closer to that date. The date we are hoping for should allow the test to be good for your whole M3 year!

If you do not see any requirements in ACEMAPP beyond the original documents required by the school, it’s because your first rotation is at a site other than Piedmont, St. Mary’s, Northside or Wellstar, that does not use ACEMAPP for its credentialing (e.g. Northeast Georgia). Rotations are created one at a time in ACEMAPP. Once your rotation at one of those hospitals is created in ACEMAPP the appropriate credentialing requirements will show up in your account.

Documents loaded onto ACEMAPP must be reviewed and verified by the credentialing coordinators at the school and the site. Sites have in some cases thousands of students to credential so this takes time. If you have not received a denial and are still showing missing requirements, please be patient. There are a lot more of you than there are of coordinators at the school or the sites!

Most sites have required modules in ACEMAPP that must also be completed as part of the credentialing process. Until you have completed all of these you will not be credentialed.

Write N/A in the box. It does not apply to you.

No. The St. Mary’s requirement only asks for a health and history exam/physical by a qualified healthcare provider that indicate a health status that sufficient for the learning experience, completed within the past 12 months of the rotation start date.

Hospitals set their own requirements for how frequently items need to be completed, if it says you need it just do it!

Physicians in private practices are often affiliated with hospitals, and credentialed at those hospitals, so they can have hospital privileges. Hospital privileges authorize doctors to practice at and admit patients to those hospitals. For you to go to the hospital with your preceptor you will also need to be credentialed at that hospital(s).

Malpractice Insurance information is updated yearly and kept on the E-Value homepage. It is the link labeled ‘Proof of Student Insurance’ for the current academic year.