On February 2nd, the movie “GROUNDHOG DAY” played almost continuously on a cable station. You couldn’t miss it if you tried. Funny, and –dare I say— “timeless”, the movie is about a guy stuck in a pattern of repeating the day over and over and over again. Humor ensues, but the theme is his frustration with living the same tired old day out repeatedly. It’s very frustrating to see the same mistakes made repeatedly and its human nature to try to correct those mistakes. Thus, the revised standards.
The original HQAA Standards were written about 15 or 16 years ago, in the months leading up to HQAA opening for business. The last major reworking of the standards was in 2012, 11 years ago! HQAA staff spent some time last year systematically reviewing the standards and all the language in the standards themselves as well as the evidence of compliance sections. The standards were well thought out and reasoned when created. Over time, however, some of the language in them had grown outdated. Law, regulation, billing requirements, and standards of practice have evolved and changed in the last 11 years, and it was time to update, refresh, and modify the standards to make them fit the new day!
HQAA rolled out the new and improved standards on January 9, 2023. Our plan was not to update them with constant minor patches and debugging (we’re talking about you, Apple); but rather, to make all the changes in one fell swoop to minimize the educational updates and avoid multiple “learning curves”. Several months worth of work is synthesized into some minor –and some, not so, minor changes.
As you review the changes, you’ll hopefully notice that many are simply better clarifications of standards that were already in place. For the most part, they were created (or re-created) to make complying with the standards easier for you the customer.
Click here for a downloadable document with a comprehensive list of changes to the standards
Download the Limited version here
