JCAHO to survey hospitals’ compliance with HCFA rule
This month, surveyors from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations will begin to survey hospitals for compliance with the Health Care Financing Administration’s (HCFA) requirement that a licensed independent practitioner conduct a face-to-face evaluation of an individual in restraint or seclusion for behavioral health reasons within one hour of its initiation. HCFA established the one-hour time frame in its interim final rule, which went into effect in August 1999.
The Joint Commission announced recently that its surveyors would check for compliance with the HCFA rule. The standards and survey procedures (SSP) Committee modified the intent statement for existing Standard TX.7.1.3.1.7 in the Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Hospitals (CAMH). The revised intent statement requires that those hospitals using Joint Commission accreditation for Medicare deemed status purposes comply with the one-hour time frame when restraint or seclusion is used under the existing behavioral health care standards in the CAMH.
The Joint Commission’s newly adopted standards for the behavioral health use of restraint or seclusion will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2001. Consequently, the SSP committee also is being asked to similarly modify the intent statement for the new Standard TX.7.1.6 in the CAMH.
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