Report a Complaint - The Joint Commission

Wednesday 3:17 CST, June 27, 2012

Report a Complaint


The Joint Commission uses information from a variety of sources to improve the quality and safety of the more than 19,000 health care organizations it accredits and certifies. One of these sources is complaints from patients, their families, government agencies, and the public, as well as from an organization’s own staff and the media.



If you have a complaint about a health care organization that we accredit or certify, The Joint Commission’s Office of Quality Monitoring is interested in the details of your complaint. Although we cannot serve as complaint mediators, we can use the information you provide to identify possible noncompliance with our accreditation or certification standards. For direct resolution of your complaint, you may want to bring your issue to the attention of the health care organization’s leadership.



When we receive a complaint

As an accreditor, The Joint Commission can only evaluate complaint information in terms of its relevance to compliance with our accreditation or certification standards. The Joint Commission is not the forum for the resolution of individual complaints or disputed matters, nor can we assist to resolve individual injuries or concerns.



Joint Commission standards focus on safety and quality of care. Matters of billing, insurance, payment disputes, personnel issues, or labor relations are not within The Joint Commission’s scope. We also cannot follow up on complaints about organizations that we do not accredit or certify.



How to report a complaint

If you wish, you can remain anonymous. However, providing a name and either a U.S. mail or e-mail address allows us to contact you for additional information or clarifications, if needed. Should you decide to disclose your name and address, we will keep this information confidential, although we may disclose de-identified details to the organization in question in order to make our evaluation. According to Joint Commission policy, all staff at our accredited or certified organizations must be informed that they may make a complaint without fear of retaliatory actions from their organization.



To report the details about your complaint to The Joint Commission, use one of the following options:



Online:



•Submit a new complaint.

•Submit an update to a complaint. (You must have your complaint reference number)

E-mail: complaint@jointcommission.org

Fax: 630-792-5636

Mail: Office of Quality Monitoring

The Joint Commission

One Renaissance Boulevard

Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois 60181



Summarize the issue in two pages or less and include the name and full address of the organization in question. For more information, call The Joint Commission’s toll free number, (800) 994-6610, available weekdays, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Central Time.



How we respond to complaints

When we receive a complaint, we will initially evaluate whether it relates to one or more Joint Commission standards. If so, our evaluation will then focus on assessing the organization’s overall compliance with those standards. Depending on the nature of the complaint, we may take one or more of the following actions:



•If the complaint raises concerns about a continuing threat to patient safety or if it suggests a failure to comply with Joint Commission standards, we may conduct an unannounced or unscheduled on-site evaluation of the organization.

•We may ask the organization to provide a written response to the complaint.

•If the organization is scheduled for its accreditation or certification survey in the near future, we may review the complaint and the organization’s compliance with related standards at that time.

•We may incorporate the complaint details into our database that we use to monitor quality issues and track trends with our accredited or certified health care organizations.

Release of complaint-related information

Many people who report a complaint to us want to know the details of our evaluation and follow up activities. Although specific details are confidential, we can provide you with the following information, as appropriate, upon written request:



•Whether or not your complaint is relevant to the organization’s compliance with any accreditation or certification standard(s) and, if so, the specific standards identified.

•The course of action that The Joint Commission has or will take to evaluate the organization’s compliance with these standards.

•Any standard(s) for which we issued a requirement for improvement following an on-site evaluation.

•Any change we made to the organization’s accreditation or certification decision following our evaluation, which will be reflected in the organization’s Quality Report.

In addition, you may wish to refer to the organization’s Quality Report to obtain general information about the organization’s performance on key quality measures. To view a Quality Report, visit www.qualitycheck.org. To obtain a hard copy of the report, contact our Customer Service Center, 630-792-5800. Or, write to us:



Customer Service Center

The Joint Commission

One Renaissance Boulevard

Oakbrook Terrace, IL 60181



Read more information about The Joint Commission’s Public Information Policy.


http://www.jointcommission.org/report_a_complaint.aspx