Why Accreditation is Necessary for Your Home Care Agency
To do great business in the home care field, it is important that your agency is accredited and provides services by using the right home care agency software. It helps you improve your agency’s operations and outcomes, and it provides your patients with a deeper sense of trust and peace of mind. The process of accreditation is quite tedious and requires a significant amount of time and effort. It is not possible to explain the entire process here, but here are some of the most important aspects of getting your agency accredited.
What does accreditation mean?
Accreditation is a process in which the accrediting body makes sure that the agency has met all the required standards. There are three main accrediting bodies: The Joint Commission, Community Health Accreditation Program (CHAP) and the Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC). Each of these accrediting bodies follows a different process and has different requirements, but their objective is the same: make sure that people get excellent care from home care agencies. CHAP, the oldest accrediting body in the nation, is responsible for determining whether an organization meets Medicare’s Conditions of Participation or not. The focus is to make sure that agencies are following the best practices and that customers know that they are receiving the best possible care.
Why does your agency need to be accredited?
You might be thinking that in this review-based society, where there are so many places to see how good an organization really is, accrediting isn’t really going to make much difference. All the agencies accredited by Joint Commission perform higher in comparisons between accredited and non-accredited agencies. Accredited agencies have better compliance with regulations and always follow the best practices. When it comes to other areas, such as efficiency and productivity, accredited agencies are better. The staff is well-trained with lower turnovers and high employee engagement. The accrediting bodies help in achieving quality standards and take initiatives to resolve operational issues, if any, in future.
Looking forward to achieving accreditation?
This is all you need to know:
The accrediting bodies review your agency based on the process that they have developed through years of accrediting home care agencies. This is a long process; it might take a year or more to complete. Many home care organizations choose to work along the guidelines of accrediting bodies and prepare side by side. Generally, agencies are assigned a mentor or a consultant to help them find loopholes and weaknesses and then overcome them.
There might be some variances but generally, the accrediting organizations are going to rigorously review your agency based on:
- Organizational structure
- Policies and procedures
- Review of home care software that you use
- Review of federal, state, and local compliance
- Your patient care processes and procedures
- Your financial status
- Your facility and disaster management plans
- Your management
This is a short list, with only the basic categories. Each accrediting body has its own specific areas of review and requirements. The Joint Commission asks for an onsite survey and follow-up surveys every three years in order to provide accreditation. The best way to earn your accreditation faster is to go through reviews thoroughly.
If your agency is accredited, then your customers will have faith in your services. It just adds up to the good work that you are doing. It is an investment for building up your agency’s reputation, which will bring increased revenue and even more success.
To learn how a home care private duty software can help your agency function under the guidelines of accrediting bodies and stay compliant to the industry standards, request a demo now.