ACHC Survey Checklist for Home Health: What Surveyors Verify, Standard by Standard

How an ACHC survey runs

Expect an entrance conference, a document request within the first hour, personnel and patient chart reviews, home visits with staff, and an exit conference summarizing preliminary findings. The document request typically covers governing body minutes, QAPI data, personnel files, emergency preparedness plans and drill records, and a patient roster to sample charts from.

The checklist

Administration

• Governing body minutes current and signed.
• Licenses, insurance, and disclosure of ownership current.
• Organizational chart matches actual reporting lines.

Personnel files (sampled, usually 5 to 10)

• License verification at hire and at renewal.
• Competency evaluation before independent patient care and annually for aides.
• 12 hours of aide in-service per 12-month period documented.
• TB screening, background checks, and signed job description.

Patient care

• Plan of care signed and dated by the physician.
• Visit notes match ordered frequencies with missed visits documented and followed up.
• Drug regimen review completed and reconciled.
• Aide assignments in writing and supervisory visits on schedule.

QAPI

• Data-driven program with at least one active performance improvement project.
• Evidence of re-measurement and governing body review.

Emergency preparedness

• Risk assessment, plan, communication plan, and training.
• Two exercises per year with documented after-action review.

Infection control

• Surveillance activity, staff education, and observed technique consistent with policy.

Using the checklist without drowning in it

Do not fix everything at once. Sample your own files the way a surveyor would — pull five personnel files and five charts at random — and score them against the list. The gaps found in a random sample are the gaps a surveyor will find in theirs.