Deemed status is a

hospital accreditation Hospital accreditation has been defined as “A self-assessment and external peer assessment process used by health care organizations to accurately assess their level of performance in relation to established standards and to implement ways to co ...

for

hospitals in the United States A hospital is a healthcare institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emergency ...

Getting deemed status

Meeting Conditions for Coverage and Conditions of Participation

For any organization to receive funding from

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is a federal agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that administers the Medicare program and works in partnership with state governments to administer ...

(CMS), that organization must meet either the "Conditions for Coverage" or the "Conditions of Participation". These are a set of minimal standards which must be met before CMS will ever issue any reimbursement for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Two kinds of organizations can review a

health care provider A health care provider is an individual health professional or a health facility organization licensed to provide health care diagnosis and treatment services including medication, surgery and medical devices. Health care providers often rece ...

to check for compliance with these conditions - either a state level agency acting on behalf of CMS, or a national accreditation agency like the

Joint Commission The Joint Commission is a United States-based nonprofit tax-exempt 501(c) organization that accredits more than 22,000 US health care organizations and programs. The international branch accredits medical services from around the world. A majori ...

. Examples of some of the areas of focus for these minimal guidelines are the End Stage Renal Disease Program, ambulatory surgical centers, and organ procurement organizations. The standards for care for

nursing homes A nursing home is a facility for the residential care of older people, senior citizens, or disabled people. Nursing homes may also be referred to as care homes, skilled nursing facilities (SNF), or long-term care facilities. Often, these terms ...

were distributed as a result of the Nursing Home Reform Act. Outpatient clinics cannot receive deemed status. A consequence of this is that the CMS payment systems can be more complicated at small clinics than at large hospitals for the same procedures. Conditions for Coverage and Conditions of Participation apply to these kinds of organizations: *Ambulatory Surgical Centers (ASCs) *Community Mental Health Centers (CMHCs) *Comprehensive Outpatient Rehabilitation Facilities (CORFs) *Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) *End-Stage Renal Disease Facilities *Federally Qualified Health Centers *Home Health Agencies *Hospices *Hospitals *Hospital Swing Beds *Intermediate Care Facilities for Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities (ICF/IID) *Organ Procurement Organizations (OPOs) *Portable X-Ray Suppliers *Programs for All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly Organizations (PACE) *Clinics, Rehabilitation Agencies, and Public Health Agencies as Providers of Outpatient Physical Therapy and Speech-Language Pathology Services *Psychiatric Hospitals *Religious Nonmedical Health Care Institutions *Rural Health Clinics *Long Term Care Facilities *Transplant Centers When any of these organizations are reviewed, the survey checks

quality assurance Quality assurance (QA) is the term used in both manufacturing and service industries to describe the systematic efforts taken to assure that the product(s) delivered to customer(s) meet with the contractual and other agreed upon performance, design ...

and not "continuous quality improvement". In other words, the process checks for minimal expectations, and not to see whether the facility is actually improving.

History

In 1994 about 5000 hospitals were eligible to receive CMS funding as a result of being reviewed by the

. The Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 removed the deemed status of the Joint Commission and directed it to re-apply to CMS to seek continued authority to review hospitals for CfC and CoP.

References

{{reflist Accreditation Medicare and Medicaid (United States) Quality assurance Health care quality