Becker's Spine Review

28 PRACTICE MANAGEMENT Congress questions Joint Commission accreditation process — 7 insights By Angie Stewart T he House and Energy Commerce Committee sent a letter to e Joint Commission requesting a briefing on its survey process and interactions with CMS by April 6. Here's what you should know. 1. e Congressional committee is conduct- ing oversight of CMS and accreditation orga- nizations to check adherence to federal stan- dards for Medicare and Medicaid programs. 2. CMS and three other accreditation organi- zations — the Bureau of Healthcare Facilities Accreditation, Center for Improvement in Healthcare Quality and DNV GL Healthcare — also received information requests. 3. Representatives asked e Joint Commis- sion to submit the following by March 23: Copies of hospital Medicare accreditation program applications submitted to CMS, in- cluding renewal applications; copies of per- formance reviews, validation survey feedback, corrective action plans or responses to those plans from CMS; and any correspondence with CMS addressing disparity rates for hospi- tal surveys e Joint Commission performed. 4. e action is a direct response to a 2017 Wall Street Journal report, which found 350 hospitals accredited by e Joint Com- mission were in violation of Medicare re- quirements in 2014, but less than 1 percent had their accreditation violation. 5. e letter mentions concern about whether CMS oversight of accrediting organizations is adequate and notes disparities between CMS reports and findings by state agencies. "According to CMS' most recent annual re- port to Congress, in (fiscal year) 2015, AOs conducting hospital surveys did not report 39 percent of 'condition level' deficiencies that were subsequently reported following validation surveys conducted by State Survey Agencies no later than 60 days following the AO survey," representatives wrote. 6. e letters are signed by committee mem- bers Reps. Greg Walden, R-Oregon, Gregg Harper, R-Mississippi, and Michael Burgess, MD, R-Texas. 7. e Joint Commission sees the request "as an opportunity to share on the work we do to improve healthcare quality and patient safety by facilitating high reliability" and plans to respond, a spokesperson told HealthExec. n Atrium Health countersues anesthesia group over contract dispute: 4 things to know By Laura Dyrda S outheast Anesthesia Consultants, a Mednax practice, has been locked in a contract dispute with Charlotte, N.C.-based Atrium Health for the past 18 months. The anesthesia group provided services to the health system for 37 years before the system decided to switch providers, which takes effect July 1. SAC sued Atrium for obtaining "highly confidential, sensi- tive business information and trade secrets" under "false pretenses" to develop a competing services provider — Scope Anesthesia — which is slated to become Atrium's new anesthesia provider this summer, according to the Charlotte Business Journal. Now Atrium has countersued Mednax and requested a jury trial. Here are four things to know. 1. Former Atrium consultant Thomas Wherry, MD, worked for the health system when SAC was its anesthesia pro- vider, and went on to form Scope Anesthesia. Atrium has called the lawsuit "frivolous," according to the report, maintaining that Mednax is an "unstable and unreliable service provider preoccupied with increasing profits in- stead of providing healthcare of the quality and consisten- cy that Atrium Health demands," according to the suit. 2. SAC has 90 physicians who were involved in 135,000 procedures last year in and around Charlotte; however, Atrium reported the transition to Scope Anesthesia will be seamless, and that it is "ahead of schedule" in anesthesiol- ogist recruitment. 3. The countersuit states Atrium isn't comfortable partner- ing with Mednax because of the company's "workforce instability." In 2017, Mednax sued 47 anesthesiologists within its own group who were practicing at Atrium Health, according to the report. 4. Mednax did not respond to the Business Journal's re- quests for comment. n

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