Why Should You or Your Loved One Choose a WAATME Accredited Treatment Center?

Accreditation is a third-party process in which an entity, separate and apart from the health care organization ie: treatment center, assesses the organization to determine if it meets a set of standards, and requirements developed to improve quality of care. This is a voluntary process an organization takes statewide, or nationwide, whereby they make a commitment of prevention for its patients-clients, and staff.

There are three categories of accreditation online for treatment centers: The Joint Commission, CARF, or WAATME. Many treatment centers are unable to afford the financial commitment to TJC or CARF. Typically TJC is for large hospital settings. There are thousands of addiction treatment centers that have no accreditation online. Communities, counties, and even state governments, are pressuring these unregulated facilities with more restrictions. There is good reason for concern. These treatment centers in home settings may or may not be managed by a licensed professional. They may not have life-saving products on-site attributing to overdoses. Communities complain about loitering, crime, smoking, petty theft, and more. The result is non-supportive communities even to the extent those communities are trying enforce regulations that they well may not be legally able to enforce. For patients-clients working to get well a negative unaccredited treatment center hinders their efforts to recover. Why would these treatment centers not get third-party accredited?

For the treatment center owners (whom may be individuals, or corporations) they cannot afford to get accredited due to other financial commitments, unattainable regulations, red-tape, voluminous paperwork, taxes, and cost. Other accreditation organizations act as joint venture partners by requiring a portion of a treatment centers bed count, and the generated revenue from those beds, yearly. Not all beds are filled, yet the treatment center is expected to pay a portion of their revenue to these accreditation organizations.

Unaccredited treatment centers patients-clients are simply not receiving the best care possible, in turn adversely affecting not only the patients-clients, their families, and their local communities. Otherwise, these treatment centers would abide by the most achievable attainable accreditation online from WAATME.