Official Title of Standard: BHCOE/ANSI 201-2022: Standards of Excellence for Applied Behavior Analysis Services

Status: Approved as an American National Standard.

Excerpt:
The primary purpose of Behavioral Health Center of Excellence’s (BHCOE) Standards of Excellence for Applied Behavior Analysis Services is to promote access to safe, quality, and effective clinical services for patients receiving Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) services.These standards focus on areas needed for organizations providing ABA services to deliver and sustain high-quality ABA services, manage treatment costs, and reduce risk and liability. The standards address areas to review when assessing and measuring the quality of behavioral organizations within applied behavior analysis such as ethics, integrity, and professionalism; clinical documentation; service delivery; health, safety, and emergency preparedness, diversity, and more.

History & Development of the Standards:

Past BHCOE Commission meetings to discuss public commentary were held on the following dates:

• Thursday, October 22nd, 2020
• Tuesday, November 17th, 2020
• Tuesday, December 8th, 2020
• Friday, December 18th, 2020
• Wednesday, February 3rd, 2021
• Friday, February 26th, 2021
• Friday, March 26th, 2021
• Monday, April 19th, 2021
• Monday, May 17th, 2021
• Monday, June 21st, 2021
• Monday, July 19th, 2021
• Monday, November 15th, 2021
• Monday, December 13th, 2021
• Monday, January 10th, 2022
• Friday, February 25th, 2022

An initial draft of these standards was open for public comment from 7/30/20 to 8/17/20. Public comments were reviewed and addressed via BHCOE commission meetings from 10/22/20 to 7/19/21. Substantive changes were made based on those comments resulting in a second round of public commentary from 9/10/21 to 10/25/21. Significantly fewer comments were received during this public commentary period and the comments were reviewed and addressed during BHCOE Commission meetings from 11/15/21 to 2/25/22. Again, substantive changes were made to the standards resulting in a third and final public commentary period from 5/27/22 to 7/11/22. No comments were received during this commentary period and the BHCOE Commission voted to adopt the standards on 8/1/22. These standards were submitted to ANSI and received final approval on 8/10/22.