Job Descriptions

This standard provides:

The organization has written job descriptions for staff that address: (Primary)
(a) Required education, training, and/or professional experience; (Secondary)
(b) Expected professional competencies; (Secondary)
(c) Appropriate licensure/certification requirements; and (Primary)
(d) Scope of role and responsibilities. (Secondary)

It carries a weight of only 2, indicating how distant job descriptions are from consumer protection in URAC's mind.  

The documentary requirements for this standard are straightforward -- submit up to 9 job descriptions of the staff members who do the bulk of the work in the areas that are the subject of the accreditation module(s).  The onsite review is, as you might expect, a random selection of actual job descriptions, chosen from the staff directory. 

This standard typically is missed onsite by organizations that have not set minimum requirements for non-clinical staff members.  Therefore, we recommend a complete internal audit, particularly by the HR departments of first-time applicants, of all the job descriptions to assure that they all (clinical and non-clinical) have minimum requirements.  

One other tip -- eliminate the words "or equivalent experience."  They are, in URAC's view (and mine), meaningless.  Describe what that equivalent experience might be, and you'll be fine. 

URAC proposes to revise Core 4 to read as follows:

The organization has current, written job descriptions for staff that address requirements pertinent to the scope of the positions’ role and responsibilities: (Wt=2)

(a) Required education, training, and/or professional experience; (Wt = 2)

(b) Expected professional competencies; (Wt = 2)

(c) Appropriate licensure/certification requirements; and (Wt = 2)

(d) Current scope of role and responsibilities. (Wt = 2)

In addition to the scoring changes, there are a couple of substantive changes, both seemingly intended to accomplish the same task, that is, to make sure that the organization is keeping its job descriptions up-to-date:

The stem now contains the new language “current” and “requirements pertinent to the scope of the positions’ role and responsibilities.”  In addition, subsection (d) also has the new word “current”. 

This is a terrific change, in my view.  Too often, both in my years as a URAC reviewer and as a consultant to URAC applicants, I’ve seen job descriptions that have not been changed to keep up with an evolving position.  An old job description that doesn’t describe the position in its current form is a useless job description.  By putting relevant teeth in Core 4, this revision is an acknowledgement that current and previous versions of this job description standard awarded points for job descriptions in name only. 

Thus, while this raises the bar a bit, it does so in an intelligent way.  Well done, URAC!