Standards & Policy Updates

AAAHC regularly reviews its policies, procedures, and Standards to determine whether revisions are necessary. Please review the content below for the changes relevant to your organization.

Non-Medicare Deemed Status

Enhanced v41 Standards

For more than 40 years, the AAAHC has provided facilities with relevant standards and education for improvement of their patient care environment and updated our Standards regularly to reflect proven developments in medicine, technology, and specialty practice. AAAHC is proud to announce the publication of the Accreditation Handbook for Ambulatory Health Care, released as version 41. The new version of Standards will apply to all organizations seeking non-Medicare Deemed Status (non-MDS) accreditation with AAAHC and is the outcome of valuable feedback from our Standards Development Committee, client organizations, surveyors, partners, and staff.

v41 non-MDS Standards provide a seamless transition for quality improvement efforts and features:

• More concise and organized format
• Less repetition
• Non-Deemed/Deemed Status program scoring alignment

The effective date of v41 is November 1, 2020. AAAHC will survey all organizations with an anniversary/expiration date on or after November 1, 2020 against this new set of Standards.

Organizations with an anniversary/expiration date prior to November 1, 2020, but who are scheduled for a survey on or after November 1, 2020 due to delays from the COVID-19 pandemic will also be accountable to compliance with v41.

To view the July 15 AAAHC educational webinar, Moving Forward with Enhanced v41 Standards, and other resources, please click below. The webinar describes how this new release will enhance your quality improvement efforts.

Enhanced v41 Standards Resources

• Moving Forward with Enhanced v41 Standards (webinar)
• Moving Forward with Enhanced v41 Standards (PDF)
• Moving Forward with Enhanced v41 Standards FAQs (PDF)

To order a copy of the non-MDS v41 handbook, please visit our Publications page or click here.

Medicare Deemed Status

Enhanced v41 MDS Standards

On August 26, AAAHC presented the Moving Forward with Enhanced v41 MDS Standards webinar. The presentation provides valuable information about the MDS program and assurance that we continue to support your efforts during these challenging times with relevant Standards and ongoing education.

The webinar includes an overview of MDS Standards revisions in the v41 handbook covering notable changes, such as the addition of “elements of compliance and compliance ratings charts.

To view a recording of the educational webinar and download the presentation slides, please click below. The webinar describes how this new release will enhance your quality improvement efforts.

Enhanced v41 MDS Standards Resources

• Moving Forward with Enhanced v41 MDS Standards (webinar)
• Moving Forward with Enhanced v41 MDS Standards (PDF)
• Moving Forward with Enhanced v41 MDS Standards FAQs (PDF)

To order a copy of the MDS v41 handbook, please visit our Publications page or click here.

v41 Health Plans

The Accreditation Handbook for Health Plans, v41 contains a moderate realignment of a few Standards based on the elimination of the previous “Clinical Records” and “Environment of Care” chapters and consolidation of some Standards to reduce redundancy. These changes better align the responsibility of the health plan to monitor compliance with policies related to clinical record keeping of the provider network and the environment where its membership receives care taking corrective action when indicated. In addition, chapters have been renumbered for consistency between the Health Plan and FEHB Health Plan handbooks.

Please note, Federal Employee Health Benefit (FEHB) Plans should choose the Accreditation Handbook for FEHB Health Plans, v41.

The effective date of v41 Standards is January 1, 2021.

Enhanced v41 Health Plans Standards Resource

Moving Forward with Enhanced v41Standards FAQs (PDF)

To order copies of the health plans handbooks, please visit our publications page or click here.

If you have questions or concerns, please contact Lee Todd, Assistant Director, Business Development.