Report a Complaint

Submitting a complaint on an accredited organization

The Joint Commission uses information from a variety of sources to improve the quality and safety of the more than 19,000 health care organizations it accredits and certifies. One of these sources is complaints from patients, their families, government agencies, and the public, as well as from an organization’s own staff and the media. 

If you have a complaint about a health care organization that they accredit or certify, The Joint Commission’s Office of Quality Monitoring is interested in the details of your complaint. Although they cannot serve as complaint mediators, we can use the information you provide to identify possible noncompliance with their accreditation or certification standards. For direct resolution of your complaint, you may want to bring your issue to the attention of the health care organization’s leadership. 

When they receive a complaint

As an accreditor, The Joint Commission can only evaluate complaint information in terms of its relevance to compliance with their accreditation or certification standards.  The Joint Commission is not the forum for the resolution of individual complaints or disputed matters, nor can we assist to resolve individual injuries or concerns.

Joint Commission standards focus on safety and quality of care. Matters of billing, insurance, payment disputes, personnel issues, or labor relations are not within The Joint Commission’s scope. They also cannot follow up on complaints about organizations that they do not accredit or certify. 

How to report a complaint

If you wish, you can remain anonymous. However, providing a name and either a U.S. mail or e-mail address allows us to contact you for additional information or clarifications, if needed. Should you decide to disclose your name and address, we will keep this information confidential, although we may disclose de-identified details to the organization in question in order to make our evaluation. According to Joint Commission policy, all staff at our accredited or certified organizations must be informed that they may make a complaint without fear of retaliatory actions from their organization. 

To report the details about your complaint to The Joint Commission, use one of the following options:

Online:

• Submit a new complaint.
• Submit an update to a complaint. (You must have your complaint reference number)

E-mail:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Tel:   800-339-3459
Fax:  630-792-5636
Mail:  Office of Quality Monitoring
         The Joint Commission
         One Renaissance Boulevard
         Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois  60181

Summarize the issue in two pages or less and include the name and full address of the organization in question. For more information, call The Joint Commission’s toll free number, (800) 994-6610, available weekdays, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Central Time.  

How they respond to complaints

When they receive a complaint, they will initially evaluate whether it relates to one or more Joint Commission standards. If so, their evaluation will then focus on assessing the organization’s overall compliance with those standards. Depending on the nature of the complaint, they may take one or more of the following actions:

• If the complaint raises concerns about a continuing threat to patient safety or if it suggests a failure to comply with Joint Commission standards, they may conduct an unannounced or unscheduled on-site evaluation of the organization.
• They may ask the organization to provide a written response to the complaint.
• If the organization is scheduled for its accreditation or certification survey in the near future, they may review the complaint and the organization’s compliance with related standards at that time.
• They may incorporate the complaint details into our database that we use to monitor quality issues and track trends with our accredited or certified health care organizations. 

Release of complaint-related information

Many people who report a complaint to Joint Commission want to know the details of their evaluation and follow up activities. Although specific details are confidential, they can provide you with the following information, as appropriate, upon written request:

• Whether or not your complaint is relevant to the organization’s compliance with any accreditation or certification standard(s) and, if so, the specific standards identified.
• The course of action that The Joint Commission has or will take to evaluate the organization’s compliance with these standards.
• Any standard(s) for which we issued a requirement for improvement following an on-site evaluation.
• Any change they made to the organization’s accreditation or certification decision following our evaluation, which will be reflected in the organization’s Quality Report.

In addition, you may wish to refer to the organization’s Quality Report to obtain general information about the organization’s performance on key quality measures. To view a Quality Report, visit www.qualitycheck.org. To obtain a hard copy of the report, contact Joint Commissions Customer Service Center, 630-792-5800. Or, write to them:

Customer Service Center
The Joint Commission
One Renaissance Boulevard
Oakbrook Terrace, IL  60181

Read more information about The Joint Commission’s Public Information Policy.