URAC WS 36 and 37 -- v. 2.1 revision

In upgrading the Web site standards from v. 2.0 to v. 2.1, URAC has merged standards 36, “Policies and Procedures Review”, and 37, “Policies and Procedures Dates”, into a single standard 36.  While there is no substantive change in the language, the merger of the two standards, which in v. 2.0 were weighted 4 and 3, respectively, and the assignment of a weight of 4 to the new, combined standard, accomplishes two things:

It marginally decreases the importance of the P&P maintenance and approval process compared to the rest of the Web site standards, and

It marginally increases the impact of omitting from the P&Ps the effective dates and the date of the most recent revision. 

The new standard reads:

The owner: (Secondary)

(a)    Maintains a master copy of policies and procedures; (Primary)

(b)   Reviews policies and procedures no less than annually, and revises when necessary; and (Secondary)

(c)    Ensures that internal policies and procedures include effective dates, including the date of the most recent revision. (Primary)

For a more complete explanation of URAC’s scoring system, see this blog on the subject.