Practice Management
Practice Accreditation
Continuing quality assurance is an integral part of the present-day practice of medicine. The Intersocietal Commission for the Accreditation of Nuclear Medicine Laboratories (ICANL) provides an increasingly renowned method for general nuclear medicine, nuclear cardiology and PET facilities to evaluate and demonstrate the level of patient care they provide. Committed to balancing the changing needs of the nuclear medicine, nuclear cardiology and PET communities with the general public, the ICANL was created by uniting physicians and technologists from Academy of Molecular Imaging (AMI), American College of Cardiology (ACC), American College of Nuclear Physicians (ACNP), American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC), the SNM and the SNM Technologist Section. These physicians and technologists formed the ICANL Board of Directors, composing the Essentials and Standards, an extensive document defining the minimal requirements for facilities to provide high quality care. Facilities may use the Essentials and Standards as the foundation to create and achieve realistic quality care goals.
The accreditation process begins with a comprehensive self-evaluation by facility staff. Completion of the application for accreditation requires information on all aspects of facility operations as well as the submission of actual case studies for review. After a facility submits the application to the ICANL, the application undergoes a confidential peer-review by the ICANL's trained reviewers, both physicians and technologists. In addition, a trained technologist, physician or scientist performs a mandatory site visit of the laboratory before the Board of Directors makes an accreditation decision. The ICANL does not restrict accreditation to the "perfect" nuclear medicine, nuclear cardiology or PET facility. Rather, the application is reviewed for substantial compliance with the Essentials and Standards.
The ICANL is a member of the Intersocietal Accreditation Commission (IAC), along with the ICAVL, offering vascular accreditation, and the ICAEL, offering echocardiography accreditation. Reimbursement by Medicare and other payers is tied to these organizations relative to their medical specialty. ICAVL accreditation, now in its second decade, is tied to reimbursement in more than half of the United States. Several states currently require ICANL accreditation. Additional information concerning reimbursement issues is posted on the ICANL Web site, www.icanl.org.
In 2001, the SNM Practice Accreditation Program was merged with the ICANL program in an effort by the two organizations to better serve all types of nuclear medicine laboratories with a comprehensive program. All facilities were grandfathered into the ICANL program.
