Turn-Around-Time on TJC Survey Reports

  Used to be a healthcare organization would have weeks (….and weeks) before their TJC report was reviewed by the powers that be in Chicago, scrubbed, and posted to the organization’s website. Now, however, TJC has an approximate goal of a ten day turn around time (2 weeks) to get that report reviewed and posted. And we’ve seen client reports posted as early as 7 days! What does this mean to you? Less time to work on your clarifications. When an organization seeks to clarify RFIs (or elements of performance under a given RFI, even if the standard won’t be removed), TJC allows a 10 working day (excluding weekends and holidays) time frame. Clarifications must be submitted within the 10 day period. Prior to 2009, we advised clients to wait until the final report was posted before implementing an “all hands on deck” approach to their clarifications; primarily because some of the findings were expected to be changed during the TJC “scrubbing” process, and the organization could be working on a clarification that would not come back in the posted report. Lately, with the rapid turn-around-time of the posted report, if an organization waits to collect data needed for the clarifications, they may find themselves running out of time. Some of the audits required to clarify category “C” elements of performance can be very time consuming, as can researching a given finding for an “A” category element of performance. So we recommend organizations review the preliminary report, and start the clarification process early for any findings that are scored correctly (i.e., under the correct element of performance, under the correct standard – for example, if the surveyor cited the hospital for an untimely H&P under the RC standard, the issue belongs under the PC standard and has been incorrectly scored.) We’ve seen very little changes in the scrubbed and posted reports, and, with the stepped-up posting turn-around-time, your organization may benefit from an early start.