How to ensure speech and language compliance, part 1

Speech and Language Therapy is executed by health professionals. This highly complex and diverse practice requires these professionals to fit within specified standards and compliance.

How to comply with the Health and Care Professions Council standards?

In the United Kingdom, the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) ensures that allied health professionals have an initial fitness to practice. This includes checking the qualifications of those who apply for registration and dealing with complaints against therapists. The HCPC also ensures that UK courses leading to the qualification are appropriate and keeps record of all individuals registering as a 'speech and language therapist'. Lastly, the Council sets the standard for these health professionals.

The HCPC standards can be broken down into 4 categories:

• Standards of conduct, ethics and performance
• Standards of proficiency
• Standards of continuing professional development
• Standards relevant to education and training

The standards of conduct, performance and ethics outlines that practitioners should keep full, clear and accurate records for everyone they care for, treat or provide other services for. These records must be completed promptly, as soon as possible after providing care, treatment or other services. They must be secured by protecting them from loss, damage or inappropriate access.

What are the best practices promoted by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association?

In the United States, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) offers Practice Policy Documents to promulgate best practices and standards in the profession. This includes, among others;

• Code of ethics
• Guidelines
• Preferred practice patterns

To be more specific, ASHA preferred practice patterns recommend the following documentation:

• Documentation that reflects the nature of the professional service needing to be prepared, signed and maintained within an established time frame
• Results of assessments and treatments are reported to the patient/client and family/caregivers, appropriately
• The privacy and security of documentation is maintained in compliance with the regulations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), and other state and federal laws
• Except for screenings, documentation addresses the type and severity of the communication or related disorder or difference, associated conditions (e.g., medical or educational diagnoses) and impact on activity and participation (e.g., educational, vocational, social)
• Documentation includes summaries of previous services in accordance with all relevant legal and agency guidelines

Stay tuned as we'll continue to explore how to be compliant in our upcoming blog post. We'll be focusing on insurance and patient consent. If you're interested in learning more about another topic, you can always email us at contact@noala.co

How does Noala support you with regulation and compliance?

Our digital platform is GDPR and HIPAA compliant, as well as being HCPC aligned. We are an all-in-one platform tailored for speech and language professionals, ensuring data security and easy accessibility to maintain patient documentation and keeping it up to date accordingly.

‍