How Athena automated license tracking for 250+ clinicians

Charlene Feliciano is the HR Director at Athena. She’s also a Rippling power user who uses the product to tackle hard business problems.

We're a mental health services clinic growing fast. We are just over 330 employees, and on track to hit 400 by the end of the year. About 90% of our staff are clinicians, which means tracking hundreds of professional licenses, certificates, and credentials. When those expire, we deal with administrative headaches and risk serious compliance issues. And since we’re regulated by the state to a certain extent, keeping everyone's credentials current isn't optional.

For the longest time, I tracked all of this manually. It was exhausting, error-prone, and always felt like something was about to slip through the cracks.

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The problem: Manually tracking 250+ sets of credentials

Imagine trying to monitor expiration dates for over 250 clinicians, each with their own set of licenses, Medicaid credentialing, and mandatory compliance documents.

That was my reality. I was updating spreadsheets, setting calendar reminders, and following up with staff members when their credentials were about to expire. Beyond the compliance risk, the manual process was difficult and time-consuming.

The solution: A custom credential tracking app

I knew we needed something better, but honestly, I'm not the most tech-savvy person. I tried to build something on my own at one point, but it was a bit complex for me. And it became one of those things I just put on the back burner.

That's when Rippling came in. I was able to work one-on-one with a Rippling expert to build a custom app. In just a few hours, we built exactly what I'd been envisioning for license management. 

Here's how it works:

Step 1: Centralize all credential information

We created a custom app in Rippling to track each clinician's:

• Highest level of education

• License type and number

• License expiration date

• Medicaid credentialing status

• Mandatory compliance documents and their expiration dates

Now, all of this information lives in one place, and I no longer have to dig through documents to find out when someone's license expires.

Step 2: Build automated renewal reminders

When a document is about to expire, Rippling automatically sends reminder emails to the staff member, giving them plenty of time to renew.

Step 3: Create compliance dashboards

Now I can pull up a dashboard that shows me, at a glance, which credentials are current, which are expiring soon, and which need immediate attention. If we ever need to prove compliance, everything's right there.

The impact

Building our custom app with Rippling transformed how we handle credential compliance, and is saving us real time and stress.

Manual work eliminated

I'm no longer spending hours updating spreadsheets and sending reminder emails. Rippling automated that very manual process, freeing me up to focus on other HR priorities. I'm also really thrilled to implement it with the team and see how much less manual work this is for us.

Compliance confidence

The custom app’s been amazing. With automated reminders and real-time dashboards, it gives us confidence that we're always audit-ready. For us, staying compliant is non-negotiable. In fact, we're currently undergoing an audit, and thanks to the custom app, we were able to easily access and download all the licensing information for clinicians needed for the audit.

From idea to app in hours, not weeks

The Rippling team sat with me, explained every step, and tailored the process to my company's unique needs. Honestly, I was shocked at how quickly we got it up and running. I had just an idea, and a few hours later, I had a fully functional app ready to implement. That’s priceless.

Scalable as we grow

It's going to have a really big impact. As we continue adding clinicians (we're on track to hit 400 employees by December), our custom credential tracking app will scale with us.