BHM Assists East Carolina Behavioral Health with URAC Accreditation

Saint Louis, MO, February 22, 2010 -- Behavioral Health Management (BHM), a healthcare consulting firm, successfully assisted East Carolina Behavioral Health in achieving a three-year URAC Accreditation. URAC is the largest accrediting body for health care organizations and is recognized nationwide. URAC accredits a number of different health care organizations and focuses on health and quality standards.

The Accreditation Committee made the final decision to grant ECBH full accreditation in less than one week after the on-site survey and reported that "no areas for improvement were found." Rachel Walker congratulated ECBH staff on this swift and highly positive final decision, stating that “the rapid turnaround is highly unusual." Several BHM staff commented that the ECBH organization and its members were a great pleasure to work with and deserving of much praise. Roy Wilson, CEO of East Carolina Behavioral Health stated "I am very pleased with the hard work and dedication of Kim Keehn who lead the project as well as the rest of our staff. This year in addition to obtaining URAC Accreditation, they have implemented 10 new counties into our existing 9 county region. Additionally the dedication of BHM’s Rachel Walker helped our staff easily and expediently achieve this accreditation."

The BHM team, lead by Senior VP of Accreditation and Quality Improvement, Rachel Walker, began assisting ECBH with accreditation preparation in March 2009. The process began with a review of existing policies, procedures, program descriptions, reports and other data against the URAC standards; followed by the development of a detailed project plan. Rachel Walker conducted weekly web-based teleconference calls with key ECBH staff to review the project plan, document progress and strategize with the group. On site visits were conducted only when necessary to assist ECBH with implementing related operational changes. This approach, utilizing technology to the full extent possible, proved to be both cost-efficient and highly effective. ECBH received the full three-year accreditation for Health Utilization Management, Call Center and Network Management. In addition, URAC surveyors stated that ECBH Quality Improvement Projects were "some of the best that we have seen in a new organization." In fact, the surveyors suggested that ECBH may wish to present one of the QIPs as a "best practice" at the URAC annual conference.
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Contact:
Mark Rosenberg
Behavioral Health Manangement, PC
Saint Louis, MO
888-831-1171
markr@bhmpc.com
http://www.bhmpc.com/