The Healthcare Quality Improvement Act: The Quest for Immunity in Your Peer Review Process

Overview:

This webinar will discuss the Health Care Quality Improvement Act (HCQIA) in detail, including the standards that must be met to achieve immunity under the act.

The HCQIA itself will be reviewed, including a detailed look at the Congressional purpose for the act. The legislative history of the act will be reviewed to gain an understanding of the intent of Congress in passing the act.

Next will be a review of the standards under the act. We will conduct a detailed review of each of the standards and the actions that are required to meet the intent of the standards. Specifically, there are four standards under the act that must be met. We will review each of these with an eye toward court interpretation of what actions an organization must take to achieve the protections granted by the act.

First, the action must be taken “in the reasonable belief that the action was in the furtherance of quality health care." We will examine what this means and what is required for the entity taking the action to have a "reasonable belief."