The Joint Commission Continues to Poison the Medical Spider Web

The American Medical Money Machine ^ | May 21, 2015 | James R. Goldberg

[Rona Badger]

Why Do We Blindly Dance to the Same Old Music? Continuing our examination of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JC), you’ll find the story is very complex. But, in the end, if one follows the money, the real WHY behind the JC is quite simply GREED. The JC is one of the main spiders, unseen by most, who continue to spin this deadly web at our expense. They have powerful partners with executives who enjoy virtual immunity from one of the greatest protection rackets of all time.

It turns out that my suspicion of the JC is shared by many others, and has been for years. This includes numerous Congressional and Senatorial investigations, legislation, legal opinions, reports to Congress, news articles and more.

Because of their enormous political power and association with massive organizations such as the American Hospital Association (AHA) and the American Medical Association (AMA), the JC has managed to ward off any significant challenges to their coveted status. The AMA has become a lobbying arm for the industry, basically leaving doctors in the dust! The docs, in return, have abandoned the AMA. Yet, the AMA remains a top corporate member of the Joint Commission (the operative word is Commission).

[Gamecock]

The J.C. is an organization interested in nothing more than sucking at the teat of Health Care.

I have been involved in J.C. accreditation surveys since 1987, starting out as staff to overseeing a hospital department charged with J.C. readiness, so hear me out.

They develop a set of standards and healthcare organizations are obligated to jump though hoops to meet those standards. Once a certain critical mass of organizations have mastered those standards The J.C. throws the old standards out and implements new standards forcing organizations to jump through a totally new set of hoops. This of course validates the need for The J.C.

Why do organizations jump though these hoops? Medical residencies are required to be sponsored by hospitals accredited by The J.C. Medicare requires it. Military hospitals are required by law to undergo accreditation surveys.

Oh, they have now gone international (Joint Commission International) and will go into other countries and perform accreditation surveys. Interestingly enough those standards are quite a bit more lenient than the standards US hospitals are required to follow.

Now I will say there are other accrediting bodies, but The J.C. is the 800lb gorilla in the room. The other accrediting bodies are so small that quite frankly inconsequential.