Your survey will be conducted by home care professionals who have administrative and clinical or hands-on experience in home care services. The surveyor's background and experience is related to the types of services and volume of service your organization provides.
Home health and personal care
If your organization provides home health or personal care services, your surveyor will be a registered nurse with a minimum of six years' experience in home care, including three years in an administrative capacity. The surveyor also has clinical experience in a wide range of care and treatments provided in the home, and a BSN or master's degree.
Home medical equipment
If your organization provides home medical equipment services, your surveyor has owned or managed an HME company for three to five years or has had equivalent administrative experience in a large HME company. The surveyor's experience includes a working knowledge of the use and maintenance of the variety of equipment provided by your organization. In addition, if your organization provides clinical respiratory services, the surveyor is also a registered respiratory therapist (RRT) with a bachelor's or master's degree and can address the clinical as well as the equipment services your organization offers. If your organization provides rehabilitation technology services, the surveyor will have had practical experience in the provision of those services.
Pharmaceutical Services
If you are a pharmacy provider, your survey will include a pharmacist surveyor. The pharmacist has a minimum of five years Home Care experience, three of which have been in an administrative capacity. The surveyor also has had specific experience in home infusion therapy. If your pharmacy provides long term care pharmacy services or freestanding ambulatory infusion services, the pharmacist will also have had at least three years practical experience with those specific services.
Hospice services
If your organization provides hospice services, your surveyor will be a nurse with the same qualifications required for home health surveyors, but will also have a minimum three years hospice experience.
Prior to performing any surveys, new surveyors attend a two-week classroom training session, followed by a preceptorship period with experienced surveyors. Surveyors receive ongoing education through annual training programs, conference calls, audiotapes, videotapes and self-directed tutorials.
With the exception of hospice, all surveyors have been trained to survey any home care service. Thus, to provide a more cost-effective survey, when an organization provides multiple home care services, and some of those services are very small or small, the surveyor from the predominant service will generally survey those very small and small services.
For example, if you have a medium home health agency and a very small home medical equipment company, the nurse surveyor will survey both the home health services and the home medical equipment services.