“ JCAHO is an abbreviation for Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations is a non-for-profit organization that seeks to continuously improve the safety and quality of care provided to the public through the provision of health care accreditation and related services that support performance improvement in health care organizations. It is an organization made up of individuals from the private medical sector to develop and maintain standards of quality in medical facilities in the United States. Although JCAHO has no legal enforcement power, and has no official connection to the US Government regulatory agencies, many medical facilities rely on JCAHO accreditation procedures to indicate to the public that their particular institution meets quality standards”(JCAHO). JCAHO and its policies have taken on a real importance in the medical field, despite the lack of official government sanction. The Joint Commission is an independent, private sector in the United States that administers accreditation programs for hospitals and other healthcare-related organizations. The Commission develops performance standards that address crucial elements of operation, such as patient care, medication safety, and infection control and consumer rights. Most state governments require that healthcare organizations be accredited by the Commission as a condition for licensing and Medicaid reimbursement. JCAHO evaluates and accredits approximately 18,000 health care organizations, including hospitals; ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), health care networks, and clinical laboratories. The Joint Commission was founded in 1951 as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). Joint Commission Resources (JCR), a global affiliate group, oversees the Joint Commission International (JCI).
In this essay I will continue to use the monopolistically structured JCAHO (Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations). They are the only organization that determines whether hospitals or medical facilities are up to their standards enough to receive reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid. “The Joint Commission is a monopoly because it has unique statutory protection in the USA and collects $113 million in annual revenue; it is the only organization in the USA of this nature” (Joint Commission Requirements, 2009). This revenue is mainly from the fees it charges US hospitals for evaluating their compliance with federal regulations.
Without adherence to these regulations, there is no JCAHO accreditation and without that accreditation, Medicare and Medicaid will not reimburse for health care in that facility (Joint Commission Requirements, 2009). For the amount of people receiving health care reimbursement through Medicare and Medicaid, this lack of accreditation could financially decimate a health care facility without that accreditation and reimbursement. Their only option would be to not accept Medicare or Medicaid patients. JCAHO will have the some of the same fixed costs as any other business. Fixed costs such as equipment are virtually non-existent, unless you count computers; but with technology always advancing, those cannot really be counted as a fixed cost requiring constant upgrades. As for variable costs, that will be the same as well, labor (inspectors, paperwork processors), buildings & facility costs, traveling costs (to travel to each facility), and all of the other standard variable costs.