CMS Releases New Survey Process for Psychiatric Hospitals

Yesterday, CMS announced a streamlined survey and certification process for psychiatric hospitals. Beginning in March 2020, CMS will implement a streamlined process in which psychiatric hospitals will receive one comprehensive hospital survey performed by the SSA to review compliance with both hospital and psychiatric hospital participation requirements, allowing inspectors to take a broader view of a psychiatric hospital’s operations and better identify systemic quality issues.

Moving to a single survey process will benefit patients by ensuring psychiatric hospital services are evaluated in the context of the overall hospital survey program, making it easier for surveyors and the provider to identify and correct systemic quality issues that impact patient care. It also benefits providers by reducing the regulatory burden currently imposed on psychiatric hospitals because a single survey team conducting the survey will conduct, and only one report would be issued documenting any survey findings, instead of two.

CMS is notifying hospitals, SSAs and psychiatric hospital stakeholders of this upcoming change through a memorandum released today. This change does not affect accreditation organizations’ current methodologies for approving hospitals or psychiatric hospitals, or CMS’s criteria for approving accreditation organizations to survey such facilities. To ensure states are appropriately prepared to begin conducting these surveys in March 2020, CMS is developing an online training that will be released soon.

Click here to read CMS’ memorandum about the new survey process.