Eye on Accreditation: Wendy Miller, Facility Accreditation Program Manager, Board of Orthotist/Prosthetist Certification

• May 01, 2008

How does your organization differ from other deemed accrediting organizations?
Most of the other accrediting organizations have done more of the DME end, whereas we started off doing orthotics and prosthetics facilities. That’s what we do; we certify orthotists and prosthetists. Then we started to do facility accreditation. We started with the O&P shops and then we started doing the DME facilities. We’re also non-profit.

Is your accrediting process different?
Some of the others offer manuals. Unfortunately, we do not have those types of materials, but I do refer (providers) to either consultants or to agencies that can help them if they need manuals to be made up, like employee manuals and compliance manuals.

How long does it typically take for a respiratory provider to become accredited with your organization?
Right now, it’s about 60-90 days. We are suggesting that the sooner they can get their application in, the better. Once competitive bidding starts again, we have to give those suppliers who are in the competitive bidding areas priority.

What common pitfalls do you see with respiratory providers when they are going through accreditation?
One thing that we’ve seen is that they’re contracting out their respiratory therapists and they’re not going to be allowed to do that. Actually, it’s been an unwritten rule with Medicare that you can’t have contracted help that is licensed or certified, and now it will be part of the new (supplier) standards when they come out. (Providers) will not be able to contract for that service. They need to have W-2 employees on staff.

What factors should respiratory providers consider when looking for an accrediting organization?
They want to be sure that the surveyors that are coming out to their facility actually have been in respiratory or they are a respiratory therapist themselves. Our surveyors who do respiratory facilities have experience in the respiratory field or are respiratory therapists.

What are respiratory therapists doing right with accrediting?
The instructions have been good. The paperwork that they give the patients has been good. Also, monitoring patients and billing practices have been fairly good.

What advice would you give respiratory providers seeking accreditation?
First of all, when they’re shopping around and they’re asking about price, they want to be sure that they’re getting the complete price and not just the application price. I don’t know if anybody’s changed their pricing schedule, but some of them only give you the application, not the survey price — and they charge extra for traveling and expenses for the surveyor. We don’t do that. Our prices are all-inclusive.

Fast Stats
Phone: (443) 539-3818
E-mail: [email protected]
Approved for: All orthotics, prosthetics, pedorthics, DME, all respiratory and POV.

This article originally appeared in the Respiratory Management May 2008 issue of HME Business.