ACRO is pleased to offer three- and four-year accreditation options!

To apply for initial or re-accreditation, or for more information, please email Valerie Guth or call (206) 956-3642.

ACRO Accreditation reviews facilities, staffing, policies and treatment programs to confirm that accepted standards of current radiation therapy delivered in the United States are met. The review will focus on the following areas:  

• Equipment
• Staff
• Case Review
• Site Survey
• Accreditation
• Fees

Equipment : In reviewing a practice, the quantity of equipment available must be appropriate to the patient load treated and must be appropriate for the disease entities treated. The quality of the equipment will also be reviewed in terms of machine calibration, frequency of checks, and maintenance records.

Staff : The staffing of the practice, including medical and paramedical personnel should be in accordance with currently accepted standards. The quality of the staff will also be reviewed in terms of staff certifications and continuing medical and paramedical educational credits.

Case Review : An essential part of the program will be a detailed review by your peers of cases selected randomly from provided case lists. Throughout the computerized process there will be prompts to upload documents/charts to the Web site. One of these will be a list of the last full year of treatment cases coded by ID, cancer diagnoses, and procedures. Patient names are not required; however the principal cancer diagnoses are necessary to appropriately categorize each case. From this list, a minimum of 20 cases will be quasi-randomly selected by ACRO to represent the principal practice. A minimum of 15 additional cases will be quasi-randomly selected to represent each additional practice. Each case record will be uploaded to the accreditation platform as a single PDF file.

The ACRO accreditation case review process focuses on areas such as documentation, referring physician notes, patient’s history and physical, staging, informed consent, radiotherapy prescription, pathology reports, surgical reports, imaging study reports, dosimetry, simulation, daily dose logs, physician and nursing notes, treatment summary, follow-up, peer review, quality assurance and appropriateness of patient care in each clinical situation. If questions are raised regarding compliance with accepted standards of practice in the cases reviewed, more information or additional cases will be requested and will be reviewed by other panel members.

Site Survey : A site survey will be performed by a radiation oncology physicist and radiation oncology administrator who are part of the accreditation team. This survey serves to verify data submitted via the administrative and physics workbooks (i.e., number and type of radiotherapy machines and ancillary equipment, staffing, etc.) and provides opportunity to clarify any issues raised by clinical case reviewers..

Accreditation : ACRO Accreditation review will result in one of three possible outcomes:

• Full Accreditation – A 3 or 4-year Certificate of Accreditation will be awarded.
• Provisional Accreditation – A letter will be issued specifying accreditation for a period of 12 months to allow some issues identified by the review team to be addressed. When these issues have been addressed to the satisfaction of ACRO Accreditation the practice will be awarded Full Accreditation for the balance of the three or four year term and a Certificate of Accreditation will be issued.
• Denied Accreditation – A practice receiving Denied Accreditation is strongly encouraged to wait until all corrective measures have been implemented before reapplying for accreditation. Documentation of remedial actions for the required corrective actions is mandatory before reapplication.

Fees : (Initial Accreditation and Re-accreditation) ACRO offers both a three-year and four-year accreditation option.  Fees for ACRO Accreditation and the Optional Service are presented below:

Principal Practice: practice headquarters (or main office): 3-year term: $9,000 , 4-year term: $12,000

Additional Practice: (see Accreditation Manual for more information): 3-year term: $3,000, 4-year term: $4,000

Travel Costs: 3-year term: included, 4-year term: included

Optional Services:

• ACRO-RSS Distinction in Stereotactic Radiotherapy. (Fee per practice selecting this optional service): 3-year term: $3,000, 4-year term: $4,000. Please note that the award of the Distinction in SRT is contingent upon successful completion of ACRO Accreditation.
• Radiation Oncology Coding and Documentation Review Pricing is determined by Revenue Cycle Coding Strategies after consultation. Please email Valerie Guth or call (206) 956-3642 for more information.

Please note that at the current time, practices which contract with the VA to provide patient care may be required to undergo accreditation every three years. It is the responsibility of each practice to ensure compliance with VA regulations.

Additional note: If an application is cancelled by the practice after payment, a refund of up to 25% of the fee will be considered based on the reason(s) for cancellation and the work already completed by ACRO Accreditation. Refunds are not guaranteed.

READ THE ACCREDITATION MANUAL

VIEW OUR ACRO ACCREDITED PRACTICES

APPLY NOW!

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