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The Joint Commission

Do you have a complaint about the quality of care at a Joint Commission-accredited health care organization? The Joint Commission wants to know about it. Submit your complaint online or send it to them by mail, fax, or e-mail. Summarize the issues in one to two pages and include the name, street address, city, and state of the health care organization.

When submitting a complaint to The Joint Commission about an accredited organization, you may either provide your name and contact information or submit your complaint anonymously. Providing your name and contact information enables The Joint Commission to inform you about the actions taken in response to your complaint, and also to contact you should additional information be needed.

It is the policy of The Joint Commission to treat your name as confidential information and not to disclose it to any other party. However, it may be necessary to share the complaint with the subject organization in the course of a complaint investigation.

The Joint Commission policy forbids accredited organizations from taking retaliatory actions against employees for having reported quality of care concerns to The Joint Commission.

E-Mail:
complaint@jointcommission.org

Fax:
Office of Quality Monitoring
(630) 792-5636

Mail:
Office of Quality Monitoring
The Joint Commission
One Renaissance Boulevard
Oakbrook Terrace, IL 60181

If you have questions about how to file your complaint, you may contact the Joint Commission at this toll free U.S. telephone number, 8:30 to 5 p.m., Central Time, weekdays.

(800) 994-6610

Scope Of Complaint Evaluations
Complaint information is used to strengthen the oversight activities of the Joint Commission and improve the quality of care in accredited facilities. The Joint Commission addresses all complaints that relate to quality of care issues within the scope of our standards. These include issues such as patient rights, care of patients, safety, infection control, medication use and security.

The Joint Commission does not address individual billing issues and payment disputes. Also, they do not have jurisdiction in labor relations issues or the individual clinical management of a patient. The Joint Commission does not review complaints of any kind in unaccredited organizations.

How The Joint Commission Responds To Complaints
The Joint Commission encourages you to first bring your complaint to the attention of the health care organization's leaders. If this does not lead to resolution, bring your complaint to The Joint Commission for review.

The Joint Commission's response to a complaint begins with a review of past complaints about the organization, if any, and the organization's accreditation survey report. Depending on the nature of the complaint, the Joint Commission will take one or more of the following actions:

Where serious concerns have been raised about patient safety or standards compliance, the Joint Commission will conduct an unannounced, on-site evaluation of the organization.
The Joint Commission may ask the health care organization to provide a written response to the complaint.
The Joint Commission may incorporate the complaint in the quality monitoring database that is used to continuously track the performance of health care organizations over time.
The Joint Commission may review the complaint at the time of the health care organization's next scheduled accreditation survey if it is scheduled in the near future.

Release Of Complaint-Related Information
Upon request, the Office of Quality Monitoring provides the number of complaints an organization has had and the category by contacting (800) 994-6610. In addition, if an on-site review of an organization results in a change of accreditation status to conditional or preliminary denial of accreditation, these changes will be reflected in the organization's Quality Report, available in Quality Check by calling the Customer Service Center at (630) 792-5800.

After the Joint Commission completes its review of a complaint, they inform the complainant of the actions taken if contact information has been provided.