Suneel Dhand, MD

It’s a painful process that every physician should be familiar with: the healthcare credentialing process and all the mind-numbing paperwork that goes with it. It's so very 19th century! Apply to a new institution, accept an offer-and a mountain of paperwork will quickly come your way to complete. The volume is staggering, thicker than a large novel. All the usual stuff: copies of certificates, work history, legal declarations….it goes on.

Of course, every healthcare institution has to be vigorous in their assessment of physicians and making sure they are fully qualified to deal with matters of life and death. But even with the modern technological revolution, we still haven't got any closer to streamlining this process.

Nevertheless, there are proven ways doctors can really save a lot of time by staying organized:

Scan in all your main documents such as copies of certificates and licenses, and save them to a named folder on your email. When any institution asks for them, they will usually allow you to send them by email. This is vastly quicker and better for the environment than printing and mailing copies every single time.

Have a word document with other details such as your work history listed on it. You can either send this via email, print and attach it to your paperwork-or worst-case scenario, physically write it onto your forms (at least you don't have to use memory recall each time). 

Go through a service like FCVS (Federal Credentials Verification Service), which allows you to establish a portfolio of verified credentials, and then be able to quickly forward them on to any requesting entities such as State License Boards-bypassing the otherwise labor-intensive process. This is especially useful for foreign medical graduates.

Do not underestimate how much time you can save by doing the above things. Busy physicians don’t want to be spending hours and days on credentialing paperwork-way too much wasted time (and money). Be smart and have everything oven-ready next time you find your next great gig.

 is an internal medicine physician, author and speaker. He is the cofounder of DocsDox (www.DocsDox.com), a service that helps physicians find local moonlighting and per diem opportunities, bypassing the expensive middleman. Dhand can be reached at 

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Opportunities abound for doctors of all specialties. Clinical inpatient and outpatient work, telemedicine, insurance, administrative, pharmaceutical, or completely different ventures- so many choices out there.                      

Physicians are behind most other industries though, when it comes to “thinking outside the box” and taking advantage of the supply-demand mismatch that exists in healthcare. Slowly, they are entering the 21st century! There’s a common misconception out there that doctors need to be in one place to be providing great patient care.

Sure, that’s true for each individual working day, but doctors can easily have multiple different types of work during any given week, or even “side gigs”, and constantly be expanding their medical knowledge and clinical skills at the same time. In fact, it is more likely to make them better doctors if they are utilizing their skills in a variety of diverse ways.

The way that any physician organizes this way of working will of course be tailored to the individual. A full-time medical doctor could do some lucrative administrative work in the early evenings or weekends. A part-time internist could do some urgent care shifts when they aren’t in their regular practice. An orthopedic surgeon can do some consulting for a device company. Or a physician could simply full-time independently contract doing different types of work on different days.

However, one pattern that you will start to notice very quickly: those doctors who have more than one job, are consistently happier than those who are tied to only one organization- especially as a full-time employee (make no mistake, there’s no long-term career satisfaction like that). They are taking the first steps to regaining their autonomy, being in control of their schedule, and practicing on their own terms. At a time when burnout and job dissatisfaction rates are escalating wildly, it’s a step worth taking, that no doctor ever looks back from.

Suneel Dhand MD is an internal medicine physician, author and speaker. He is the cofounder of

, a service that helps physicians find local moonlighting and per diem opportunities, bypassing the expensive middleman.

What does it mean for the future of medical work and burnout?