WHAT IS DELAYED ACCREDITATION?

After the review of a laboratory's accreditation application, the Board of Directors renders an accreditation decision. One of four decisions will be made: granted, delayed, site-visit, or denied. A delayed decision means that there are significant issues, deficiencies or lack of adherence to the ICAEL Standards that must be addressed by the laboratory before it can be granted ICAEL accreditation.

WHAT DELAY MEANS TO THE LAB SEEKING REACCREDITATION

All accredited laboratories receive a notification letter twelve to fourteen months prior to the expiration of their accreditation. Board meetings are generally scheduled within two weeks of the expiration dates on the laboratory's current accreditation certificates. It is crucial that laboratories apply by the deadline specified in this letter and submit a complete application without significant deficiencies.

The laboratory will be notified in writing of the Board's accreditation decisions within two to three weeks after the Board meeting. This letter will outline the reasons for the delayed decision and include the documentation that must be submitted in order to correct the lack of adherence to the ICAEL Standards. To better accommodate laboratories in the reaccreditation stage, the Board of Directors instituted a 60-day grace period to maintain accreditation status. The grace period gives a laboratory that has been delayed reaccreditation 60 days to resolve delay issues and provide the required or corrected documentation to the ICAEL, upon which the final decision will be made by the Board of Directors. During the 60 days, the laboratory will be granted a continued presence on the ICAEL website as an accredited laboratory and continued use of the ICAEL Accredited Laboratory logo. The 60-day extended timeframe is intended to minimize the inconvenience of needing to redesign reports and letterhead acknowledging their accreditation status and concerns about meeting reimbursement guidelines. However, laboratories are still required to submit their reaccreditation applications for the appropriate application deadlines.

Laboratories that do not correct delay issues during the 60-day grace period will no longer be considered accredited. Those laboratories are automatically deleted from the list posted on the ICAEL website if the delay materials have not been received in the ICAEL office by the end of the 60-day grace period. Because Medicare, third party payers, referring physicians and patients refer to this list, a lapse in status can affect billing or community relations. In addition, the ICAEL logo affirming the laboratory's status as an "Accredited Echocardiography Laboratory" must be removed from any materials, along with any other references to accreditation by the ICAEL, by any laboratory that does not maintain its accreditation.

STEPS YOU CAN TAKE TO AVOID DELAY

There are several steps that laboratories can take to increase the likelihood that accreditation is attained without any delay.

• Application Review Findings (ARF) letter. Review the Application Review Findings (ARF) letter sent to your laboratory when accreditation was last achieved.

• Version of The ICAEL Standards. Verify that your laboratory is adhering to the current edition of the ICAEL Standards. Dates of revision are listed in the footer of every page. Verify that the date on your materials corresponds to those on the web, or contact our office to make sure you are using the correct edition.

• Case Studies. Be certain that all case studies document your laboratory's adherence to The Standards. For example, approximately 50% of applications that are first-time submissions for Adult Transthoracic are delayed because laboratories fail to sufficiently document that multiple interrogation of the aortic valve with the non-imaging probe is being performed in the laboratory.

• Final Reports. One common reason for delay in Adult Transthoracic testing is that the final reports submitted for the case studies are not standardized and do not contain comments on all cardiac structures with the sonographer's identification in the header.

• QA Correlation. A number of laboratories are also delayed for insufficient documentation of quality assurance for correlation. The Standards specify that correlation is required for reaccreditation in each area of testing.

• CME. Be sure that sufficient CME credits are submitted for the medical or technical staff members that are related to echocardiography. You can review the ICAEL requirements for continuing medical education credits here.