The Joint Commission

The Joint Commission is the independent nonprofit that accredits most hospitals in the United States, along with surgery centers, labs, home health agencies and behavioral health providers. It was founded in 1951, it is still sometimes called by its old initials, JCAHO, and its accreditation is what allows a hospital to be paid by Medicare without a separate state inspection. About 80 percent of U.S. hospitals hold it. Surveyors visit unannounced, roughly every three years, and check hundreds of standards covering infection control, medication safety, staff credentials, patient rights and emergency preparedness.

Accreditation is a floor, not a ranking. Almost every hospital you have heard of has it, so its presence tells you a facility meets a baseline, and its absence, or a recent loss of it, tells you something serious happened. Where it becomes a useful signal is outside the big hospitals: a freestanding surgery center or imaging center that has gone through Joint Commission or AAAHC accreditation has submitted to the same kind of review a hospital gets, and that is one reason TruePrice lists accreditation next to every facility price. The Joint Commission also publishes its own quality reports and "Gold Seal" status, and it runs disease-specific certifications, for example for joint replacement or stroke programs, which are closer to a real quality mark for a particular service.

The takeaway: treat accreditation as a requirement, not a recommendation. For a surgery center or clinic, confirm it holds Joint Commission or AAAHC accreditation before you book; for a hospital, look past the seal to the specific quality measures for your procedure.