TJC and CMS News for the Behavioral Healthcare Industry
May 2020
In This Issue:

Greetings to Our Colleagues in Behavioral Healthcare!
As we publish our May newsletter, we're keenly aware that everyone continues to grapple with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Once again, we're limiting our coverage this month to information and resources related to that challenge.
 
Our first article covers the monitoring of COVID patients who are at high suicide risk - an important topic from both a safety and infection control perspective.
 
Our second article covers the use of telepsychiatry and how CMS has eased certain requirements for this service during the pandemic.

We'll continue to keep in touch via our newsletter and our  TJC & CMS News Blog on our website. If we can help you with any regulatory readiness needs long distance, just contact us and we'll set that up.
 
Meanwhile, we send a message of deep gratitude and support to our healthcare colleagues out there on the front lines!

Anne Barrins
President/CEO
Look Forward to Reconnecting Soon!

Currently, most of our onsite work with clients is suspended due to COVID-19 restrictions. We're providing offsite consultation to several clients. This keeps them in continuous readiness mode for when TJC and CMS surveys resume. Contact us now and let's discuss how this can benefit your organization. Meanwhile, stay safe and healthy!

1-877-546-7206
Tip of the Month
Heads up! There are new standards going into effect on July 1st in both the Hospital and Behavioral Health Care manuals. TJC accredited organizations can check out the May edition of TJC Perspectives (on their Joint Commission  Connect  site) to see the Summary of Changes for the 2020 Spring Update to Accreditation and Certification  Manuals (page 15.)
Why Choose
Barrins & Associates?

"We recently engaged Barrins & Associates to help us prepare for our upcoming Joint Commission follow-up survey. Our nurse consultant was just outstanding at engaging the leadership team as well as organizing all of our resurvey preparation. In addition, she was a great cheerleader for our team and really motivated everyone to work together for our common goal. We feel so much better prepared for when TJC comes back to survey us."
 
Charles Clark
President, Behavioral Health Institute
Fort Wayne, Indiana
COVID-19:  Suicide Risk Monitoring  
COVID-19 and suicide risk: definitely two challenging patient care issues. Recently, The Joint Commission (TJC) answered a question about monitoring COVID-19 patients who are a high suicide risk. Specifically, the question was whether staff doing a 1:1 observation for a high suicide risk patient with COVID-19 (or suspected COVID-19) need to be in the patient's room.
 
In response to this question, TJC reiterated their current guidance re high risk patients in areas containing ligature and/or other safety risks. That guidance is that ... 
COVID-19:  Telepsychiatry and CMS Regulations 
With the onset of COVID-19, telepsychiatry use has dramatically increased. Clearly, providers are finding it a viable solution for treating patients previously seen in office settings. In response, CMS recently eased several reimbursement requirements for the use of telepsychiatry.

Effective March 17, 2020, CMS is allowing providers to see patients via live videoconferencing in the patient's home. This eliminates the previous requirement for the patient to travel to a qualifying "originating site" for Medicare telehealth services.
 
CMS defines telemedicine as ... 
Barrins & Associates provides Joint Commission and CMS consulting services for the Behavioral Healthcare industry. Our clients include psychiatric hospitals and freestanding Behavioral Healthcare organizations. We specialize in providing Survey Preparation and Continuous Survey Readiness services for the Behavioral Healthcare industry. Barrins & Associates was founded by Anne Barrins who was a Joint Commission surveyor for 13 years.