Revisions to Outpatient Record Review. Requirements for Critical Access Hospitals.

The Joint Commission recently revised a Medical Staff (MS) requirement for critical access hospitals based on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) January 16, 2015, revisions to its interpretive guidelines related to the review of outpatient records (S&C: 15-19-CAH).* Effective July 1, 2015, Standard MS.03.01.03, element of performance (EP) 11 has been revised to clarify that a sample of outpatient records must be reviewed when required by state law. The Note at EP 11 was also revised to delete the 25% sample requirement and to clarify that each critical access hospital determines by its own policy the size of the sample reviewed. These revisions are in addition to those made last year to