Choosing an accrediting body for your health services organization is an important step in ensuring external peer review, third-party verification, and compliance with certain healthcare and regulatory laws.
Some key questions ABA Providers should consider:
- Is the accreditor an independent neutral entity, not owned or operated by an organization representing a specific group (e.g., payor, provider, patient, advocacy group)?
- Does the organization hold accreditation themselves such as from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)? If the organization is not ANSI-accredited, can you identify an authoritative body that recognizes the accreditor and/or reviews their performance?
- How long has that accreditor been evaluating organizations and under which standards? Is the organization widely known, respected, and stable, and does it demonstrate a history of viability for continued successful operation?
- Who oversees the accreditation program? Do they have experience in quality assurance and evaluation methodology?
- Is the accrediting body considered or approved by federal or state authorities to meet your organization’s applicable mandates or recognitions?
- What methodology does the accreditor use to provide the accreditation decision? Do they conduct site visits? Do they adhere to best practice evaluation methodology (e.g. do they rely on a multi-dimensional approach to evaluate quality)?
- Does the accreditor demonstrate good customer service – do they answer emails and calls? Does their customer service consist of standards experts, a support team, excellent written resources, and one’s own Account Executive?
- Does the accreditor use independent, neutral employees to conduct evaluations? Or does the accreditor use employees from other organizations who provide services to the same population or work for a competitor?
- Does the accreditor have an independent disciplinary review or compliance committee that oversees the adherence to the standards the organization is evaluated under?
These are just a few of the questions ABA providers should ask when researching and considering an Accreditation program for their business. It is important when evaluating an accreditor to do your full due diligence and not simply focus on the bottom-line cost. In most cases, the benefits and value of a high-quality and internationally recognized ABA accreditation program will far outweigh the costs.
BHCOE Accreditation is committed to all of the above and more. We are dedicated to quality outcomes in autism treatment and strive to promote excellence for Applied Behavior Analysis providers. Data shows that BHCOE accredited organizations outperform their non-accredited peers across many measures of quality, including patient and staff satisfaction, staff turnover, and reimbursement rates.
Learn more about BHCOE Accreditation:
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