URAC-CHQI Deal Combines Top 2 Telehealth Accrediting Organizations

The two most prominent accrediting bodies for telehealth are combining their programs.

The Washington-based non-profit Utilization Review Accreditation Commission (URAC) has announced that it is acquiring three programs from the ClearHealth Quality Institute (CHQI), an Annapolis-based organization that had worked in the past with the American Telemedicine Association to create telehealth accreditation standards. With the deal, CHQI’s programs for telehealth, remote patient monitoring and mental health and substance use disorder parity will be folded into URAC’s list of services.

“This is the union of two of the country’s leading accrediting bodies,” URAC President and CEO Shawn Griffin, MD, said in a press release. “The combined expertise between the two will allow for an unprecedented depth and breadth of accreditation knowledge that will serve to improve health outcomes across an even broader spectrum.”

“The acquisition of CHQI's programs expands URAC’s portfolio of accreditation programs to address two areas that are critical to the future of America’s delivery system: the use of technology and access to behavioral health services,” he added, noting that Washington-based URAC has been in the industry for roughly three decades.

The deal aims to clear up any confusion among healthcare providers and telehealth and mHealth companies over the value of competing accreditations.

CHQI partnered with the ATA in 2017 to create a portfolio of national telehealth accreditation standards focused on safety, transparency, regulation and patient outcomes, a project the ATA had initially begun in 2015. In 2018, the organization launched the Telemedicine Accreditation Program (TAP), endorsed by the ATA.

In late 2018, mHealthIntelligence.com talked with representatives of both organizations about the value of telehealth accreditation, at that time still an interesting concept but one that hadn’t seen a lot of traction.

“As the practice of telemedicine evolves, telemedicine accreditation should evolve,” CHQI founder Gary Carneal said in that interview. “CHQI and our volunteer-based Telemedicine Standards Committee are committed to regularly fine-tuning and updating the existing Telemedicine Accreditation Program Standards and to adding future accreditation modules as healthcare technology, regulations, and measurement tools evolve.”

“URAC will strive to keep pace with the industry and to maintain the big tent approach to our standards that enables a wide variety of organizations with diverse practice models and multiple types of practitioners to qualify for the accreditation,” added Deborah Smith, MN, a Product Development Principal with URAC. “Our aim will continue to be promotion of quality care and consumer protections.”