DNV GL now second deeming authority for psychiatric hospitals

It’s not easy being an accrediting organization (AO) these days. DNV GL Healthcare has been in the business of deeming U.S. acute care and critical access hospitals for approval to bill Medicare for more than a decade.

But when the AO, whose parent company is in Norway, wanted to branch out to deem psychiatric hospitals—until recently the domain of only The Joint Commission (TJC) —DNV had to prove itself.

It had to show CMS that it could provide accreditation services to psychiatric hospitals, including working with CMS regional offices, across the country.

So how do you prove you can do what you don’t do yet?

DNV GL approached several psychiatric hospitals in various parts of the nation, offering to do a survey for free. Mostly they got turned down, says Patrick Horine, president of the U.S.–based company, the only for-profit AO authorized to accredit hospitals.

Finally, they were able to convince a few facilities of the benefits of having surveyors on site without any real penalty. These surveys helped both the hospitals and DNV become better at what they do, Horine says.

And, of course, the work paid off for DNV. As of July, it is now...

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