Accreditation continues to play a vital role in the home medical equipment industry. In addition to needing to establish or renew accreditation in order to bill Medicare, providers have a number of reasons why accreditation plays a regular role in their daily lives.
Medicare accreditation compounds a provider’s reputation with referral partners and satisfaction from patients. It shows accredited HME providers are a partner in patient care and optimizing outcomes, and having an accrediting organization confirm that a provider meets Medicare’s standards in that regard gives the provider a competitive edge.
Ultimately, Medicare accreditation has morphed into a bit of a Gold Standard. Now even private payer insurers and health plans seek out HME providers that have Medicare accreditation. Bearing that in mind, accrediting organizations are working to increase accreditation’s market cachet.
Also, accrediting organizations are starting to offer specialized accreditation designations to further help HME providers demonstrate to referral partners and patients that they are an expert in their community when it comes to medical equipment and that they possess deep product knowledge as it pertains to their care.
These specialized accreditation distinctions take the Medicare accreditation for a specific category and “turn it up to eleven.” The standards for these programs are robust and put providers through their paces, but once a specialized accreditation is achieved, the recipient can use it to say it is the best of the best. If accreditation is a Gold Standard, then specialized accreditation would be the Platinum Standard. Let’s look at some current accreditation services available to providers:
Program helps respiratory providers differentiate
thecomplianceteam.org
Flexible Standards and Experienced Site Inspectors
chapinc.org
Accreditation Commission for Health Care reinvents program
achc.info/healthtrainupr
Faster program helps providers save time, money
www.bocusa.org
Full-line and limited DMEPOS accreditation options
www.hqaa.org
Helping HMEs make themselves the ‘partner of choice’