Hospice Accreditation: What to Look For

Look for current accreditation from one of the three organizations Medicare approves for hospice: The Joint Commission, the Community Health Accreditation Partner (CHAP), or the Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC). Then check when the hospice was last surveyed, whether the accreditation covers your location, and what the surveyors found. Accreditation is voluntary, so a hospice without it isn't automatically a concern, and having it is no substitute for checking Medicare certification and the published quality scores.

Which organizations accredit hospices?

Three national bodies have CMS-approved hospice programs, and CMS's own oversight site lists only these three as hospice accreditors. CMS holds them to the same test, requirements at least as stringent as the Medicare conditions, so you don't need to favor one over another. It just helps to recognize the names and know where to check them:

Accreditor	Where to check a hospice's status
The Joint Commission (TJC)	"Find Accredited Organizations" on jointcommission.org (hospice falls under its Home Care program)
Community Health Accreditation Partner (CHAP)	"Find a Provider" at locator.chaplinq.org
Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC)	Accredited-organization search at organization.achc.org (choose Hospice)

CMS approves each program for a limited term, after which the accreditor must reapply. The current approvals run through June 18, 2030 (TJC), November 20, 2029 (CHAP), and November 27, 2031 (ACHC).

Is accreditation required? Certification vs. accreditation

No. Medicare requires certification, not accreditation. CMS says accreditation "is voluntary and is not required for Medicare participation." The two terms get confused, so it helps to separate them:

• Medicare certification is mandatory for any hospice that wants Medicare to pay. The hospice must meet the federal Conditions of Participation and stays subject to periodic surveys. It is the floor.
• Accreditation is a review by a national accrediting organization against its own standards. In a CMS-approved program, those standards must meet or exceed Medicare's.

The two meet in what is called deemed status. A hospice can be certified through a state survey agency or, as the alternative, through an accreditor's CMS-approved program, whose survey can substitute for both the first state survey and later ones. So accreditation is not always extra scrutiny on top of the state's; for some hospices it is how they were certified in the first place. Accreditors can also offer accreditation outside their Medicare approval, so "accredited" alone does not prove a hospice is Medicare-certified. Always confirm certification first: see how to verify a hospice is Medicare-certified.

How do I check whether a hospice is accredited?

Ask the hospice which organization accredited it, then confirm with that organization's lookup or with CMS's records. Care Compare won't settle it: its hospice profiles show ownership and certification date but no accreditation. CMS's Quality, Certification and Oversight Reports site (QCOR, at qcor.cms.gov) can help. Its "Hospice 2567s" report can be searched by CMS Certification Number and shows who ran each survey (State Agency, ACHC, CHAP, or TJC) and the survey type, such as Initial, Reaccreditation, Follow-Up, or Complaint. By default it lists only surveys that cited deficiencies, so set the Deficiencies filter to "All" before you conclude a hospice isn't there.

Can I see what the surveyors found?

Yes, and QCOR's report goes back to October 2021. Federal rules have CMS post hospice inspection reports from surveys on or after October 1, 2022 on a public website, whether the survey came from a state agency or an accreditor, including deficiencies and enforcement actions such as involuntary terminations. QCOR's "Hospice 2567s" report is the place to read the deficiencies (Form CMS-2567 is the official statement of deficiencies): click the arrow beside a certification number to list what was cited, then use the PDF or web icon in the "Statement of Deficiencies Report" column to read the surveyors' full text. The report currently says its data run through June 2026, so the newest surveys may not be there yet. For the hospice's plan to correct a deficiency, ask the hospice or the state survey agency. For terminations, use the "Terminated Providers" option in QCOR's hospice search.

This matters because current accreditation and a clean record are different things. Accreditation tells you the hospice met an outside body's standards as of its last survey; it does not, by itself, tell you whether the agency has had recent deficiencies, complaints, or enforcement actions. If a hospice is accredited but you have heard concerns, ask specifically about any recent survey findings and how they were corrected. The willingness to discuss findings openly is often as telling as the accreditation itself, and it pairs naturally with the broader vetting questions in how to choose a hospice provider.

What to ask about the accreditation

• Which body accredited you, and is the accreditation current? Accreditation expires and must be renewed; an approved accreditor has to re-survey within 36 months.
• When was your last on-site survey, and were there findings? Ask how any were resolved.
• Is it a Medicare-deemed accreditation? That tells you whether the accreditor's survey is what keeps the hospice's Medicare certification in place.
• Does the accreditation cover this specific location if the agency is part of a larger organization?

A reputable agency will answer these without hesitation. Evasiveness is itself useful information.

What an accreditation survey actually checks

The systems behind the care, not the warmth of a single visit. Because a CMS-approved program must be at least as stringent as the Conditions of Participation, surveyors cover the same ground: patients' rights; assessing and controlling pain and other symptoms; safe handling of medications; infection control; staff qualifications and training; how the interdisciplinary team builds and updates the plan of care; and how the agency measures and improves its own performance. Earning accreditation can reflect organizational discipline. But that focus is also why it is useful but incomplete: a survey can show that good systems exist, not that a nurse will reach a particular home quickly on a particular night. For that, you read the family-survey scores and ask your own questions.

Who oversees an accredited hospice?

CMS, with the state survey agency as a backstop. CMS can have the state re-check an accredited hospice, either as part of a sample or after a substantial allegation of noncompliance. If that validation survey finds the hospice out of compliance, it loses deemed status, stays under state review until it shows compliance, and can face termination from Medicare. The sample re-checks were uncommon and did find gaps: in fiscal 2019, the last full year before CMS suspended them during COVID, 32 of 2,458 deemed hospices got one, and in 6 of those 32 (19%) the state cited a serious (condition-level) deficiency that CMS counted as missed by the accreditor. A rule taking effect June 16, 2027 replaces those re-checks with surveyors who observe accreditors' surveys directly. CMS has also warned that a provider terminated from Medicare may stay accredited; the same rule will require accreditors applying for CMS approval to agree to revoke accreditation within 5 business days of CMS's notice of a termination. You can file a complaint with the accreditor or with your state survey agency, even when the hospice has deemed status: see how to file a complaint about a hospice.

How accreditation differs from the scores

It helps to see accreditation as one of several distinct lenses, each answering a different question:

Lens	Required?	Answers
Medicare certification	Yes, for Medicare to pay	Does it meet the federal minimum and bill the benefit?
Accreditation	No (voluntary)	Has an outside body reviewed its systems, and when?
Inspection reports	Posted by CMS	What did surveyors cite?
CAHPS & quality measures	Reported	What did families experience, and what did the agency do?

Accreditation speaks to systems and processes; the family-survey scores speak to lived experience. They don't replace each other. An accredited hospice with weak timely-help scores still has a responsiveness problem worth probing, and a non-accredited hospice with excellent family scores may be a fine choice.

The misconception, corrected

Two myths are worth correcting. First, that a non-accredited hospice is automatically inferior: not true. Medicare doesn't require accreditation, so a hospice certified through its state survey agency may have no accreditor at all and still post strong family-survey and quality results. Second, that accreditation guarantees a good experience for your family: also not true. It reflects systems and processes, not whether a nurse will reach your home quickly at 2 a.m. Use accreditation as one input, weighed alongside the CAHPS family-survey scores and the quality measures, plus your own questions about after-hours coverage and crisis care.

Where accreditation fits in your decision

A sensible way to use accreditation is as a tie-breaker, not a starting point. Begin with the non-negotiables: confirm Medicare certification, then read the family-survey scores and quality measures, and ask the after-hours and crisis-care questions that shape your real experience. If two agencies look comparable on all of that, a recent, clean accreditation survey is a reasonable factor to tip the balance. But it should rarely override a clear advantage another hospice shows on responsiveness or family ratings.

Frequently asked questions

Is an accredited hospice automatically better than a non-accredited one?

No. Accreditation shows an outside review took place, not that care is better. Weigh it alongside the inspection reports, the scores, and your own questions.

What does "deemed status" mean?

It means CMS treats a hospice as meeting the Medicare conditions because it fully complies with a CMS-approved accreditation program, so the accreditor's survey stands in for the state's certification survey. The hospice must still meet the same Conditions of Participation.

How does a hospice agency get accredited?

It chooses an accreditor and goes through that organization's survey. If it fully complies with a CMS-approved program, the accreditor can recommend that CMS grant deemed status. After that, the accreditor must re-survey it within 36 months. During CMS's enrollment moratorium, accreditation can't bring a new hospice into Medicare. The moratorium began May 13, 2026, bars new hospice enrollments nationwide unless the application was received before that date, and runs in six-month periods that CMS can extend.

How often are hospices surveyed?

The rule is at least once every 36 months, by a state or local survey agency or an approved accreditor, and also when complaints are reported, though some surveys run late: QCOR's "Overdue Recertification Surveys" report counts them. Accreditors' re-surveys must be unannounced.

Is a "hospice medical review" the same as an accreditation survey?

No. A medical review is when a Medicare contractor requests and examines the records behind a claim to decide whether Medicare should pay it. It is a billing check, not a rating of the hospice, while an accreditation survey looks at whether the hospice as a whole meets standards.

Should accreditation outweigh poor family-survey scores?

No. Accreditation speaks to systems and processes; family-survey (CAHPS) scores speak to lived experience. Let the scores and your interview lead.

Practical next steps

• Confirm Medicare certification first if you are relying on Medicare to pay; it is non-negotiable.
• Ask about accreditation (which body, last survey date) and confirm the answer yourself.
• Check the published scores on Care Compare and the inspection reports on QCOR, regardless of accreditation status.
• Run the full framework in how to choose a hospice provider, then compare hospices near you.

Bottom line: accreditation is an optional outside review, useful context but not proof of quality. Verify certification first, read the inspection reports, and let family-survey scores and your own interview drive the decision.