http://www.carf.org/
I know you love digging around for stuff so enjoy. From what I'm seeing is they are an upscale sort of NUTSACK DOT ORG sort of deal.
More like a
JCAHO wannabe. As y'all know, JCAHO is an "accrediting" or "certifying" organization, generally used for hospitals and other institutions in a health care setting.
CARF is a similar organization, generally thought to have less stringent criteria. Organizations which ordinarily would strive for JCAHO "accreditation," but fail to comply with even those minimal "standards," end up applying to CARF as the next best substitute.
The Council on Accreditation (
COA) appears to be another one, but I don't know much about them. Prior to their demise,
Pathway Family Center used to be COA accredited, but
switched to CARF in the midst of some compliance issues.
None of them appear to have any functional teeth. Advisory boards have industry insiders on them (e.g., former KIDS of GREATER SALT LAKE Director
Kimball DeLaMare is on an advisory board for JCAHO; he's also one of the founding directors of NATSAP).
Mostly, these type of agencies seem to exist for insurance purposes: an organization can't get insurance without JCAHO, CARF, or some other sort of accreditation or certification. To get accredited, ya need to pay filing fees, probably also inspection visit fees, etc. The payment of fees seems to be the key factor of overriding importance.
