ACHC Home Care Accreditation — Frequently Asked Questions
What is ACHC Home Care Accreditation?
ACHC Home Care Accreditation is a national accreditation program for agencies providing private duty, non-Medicare home-based personal care and supportive services — including PCA services, homemaker services, companion care, and private duty nursing. It covers non-skilled, non-Medicare home support. Standards address caregiver selection, client assessment, service planning, supervision, and organizational management.
What is the difference between ACHC Home Care and Home Health Accreditation?
Home Health covers Medicare-certified agencies providing skilled nursing and therapy under physician orders — with CMS deeming authority. Home Care covers non-skilled personal care, homemaker, and companion services — typically private pay, Medicaid waiver, or LTC insurance funded. No CMS deeming authority applies to Home Care Accreditation. Agencies providing both may pursue both accreditations.
Is ACHC Home Care Accreditation required?
It is voluntary — no federal mandate. However, it is increasingly required by Medicaid MLTSS MCOs for network participation, VA Community Care for preferred provider status, and long-term care insurance carriers for panel inclusion. It is a significant competitive differentiator in the private pay home care market.
What background screening is required?
ACHC requires comprehensive screening for all direct care workers: criminal background checks, state abuse registry checks, and sex offender registry checks. Screening must be completed before service delivery and repeated at policy-specified intervals. Missing, incomplete, or outdated screening records are among the most commonly cited survey deficiencies.
What caregiver training and competency requirements apply?
ACHC requires documented orientation, ongoing in-service training, and competency assessments demonstrating caregivers can perform tasks required by each client's service plan. State training hour requirements must also be met. Sign-in sheets without competency evaluation are insufficient.
What are the supervision requirements?
ACHC requires documented supervision of aides at policy-specified frequencies, including in-home supervisory visits. Records must document what was observed, issues identified, and follow-up taken. Missing in-home supervisory visit documentation is frequently cited.
What are the client assessment and service plan requirements?
ACHC requires a pre-service client assessment informing an individualized service plan with specific tasks, frequencies, and goals. Plans must be updated when needs change and reviewed at regular intervals. Generic or outdated service plans are frequently cited deficiencies.
What 24/7 on-call coverage is required?
ACHC requires operational 24/7 on-call coverage — documented through on-call logs and response records. Inability to demonstrate that coverage is actually available (not just stated in policy) is a common survey deficiency.
How long does ACHC Home Care Accreditation take?
Most agencies can achieve initial accreditation in 6-10 months. Those with existing documentation systems may compress to 4-6 months. The timeline depends primarily on the maturity of background screening, training, and supervision documentation systems.
How much does ACHC Home Care Accreditation cost?
ACHC fees vary by agency size and are not publicly published — contact ACHC directly. IHS consulting fees are scoped per engagement — contact IHS for a tailored proposal.
What are the most common ACHC Home Care survey deficiencies?
Common deficiencies: background screening gaps, training documentation missing, competency assessments not completed, supervision records lacking in-home visits, service plans not individualized or not updated, client assessments missing required components, nominal QAPI programs, and inability to demonstrate 24/7 coverage is operational.
How does IHS help home care agencies?
IHS provides operational assessment, gap analysis, caregiver management system review, service planning audit, policy development, QAPI design, mock survey, and RFI response. IHS is led by Thomas G. Goddard, JD, PhD, former Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel of URAC.
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