The Joint Commission: Licensed independent practitioner term eliminated from AHC, OBS accreditation programs

Editor's Note

The Joint Commission, on May 24, announced that it was eliminating the term licensed independent practitioner from its Ambulatory Health Care and Office-Based Surgery accreditation programs, beginning August 27.

The revisions are consistent with terminology used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Conditions for Coverage and better reflect licensed practitioners’ full scope of practice, The Joint Commission says.

The Joint Commission also has added, updated, and deleted the following glossary terms:

• Staff (revised)
• Clinical staff (revised)
• Practitioner (replaced with licensed practitioner)
• Licensed independent practitioner (deleted)
• Provider (new).

In addition, minor editorial changes were made to other glossary definitions where these terms were used, and elements of performance were streamlined.

Prepublication standards of the revisions will be posted to The Joint Commission website in late June after review.