Benefits to Volunteering on Your Corporate Compliance Team

Many health care entities including hospitals, pharmaceutical manufactures, and retail have in place corporate compliance programs designed to identify fraud, waste, and abuse.

On March 27, 2017, the Office of Inspector General released a resource guide that measures the effectiveness of health care compliance programs.¹

Health care compliance programs should ensure that each department within the entity is following both federal and state laws, while providing high quality care to their patients. Health care compliance officers must have a vast knowledge base to understand the regulations that apply to all departments within the entity.

Would a compliance officer have intimate knowledge of pharmacy operations? I would say not. Effective compliance officers would establish committees that would have key leaders that would effectively promote change, recognize inconsistencies, and be effective problem solvers within the organization.

I have seen many committees comprised of C-Suite officers who managers and directors report to, however these officers may not best equipped to respond to issues, identify solutions, and work proactively to avoid compliance errors.

As a member of the compliance committee, you would be able to evaluate your pharmacy and identify deficiencies before they are discovered by an outside party, anticipate and resolve pharmacy operations issues, and work with other departments regarding workflow to ensure compliance is being followed throughout the organization.

Working with your Corporate Compliance Committee would allow you to claim compliance experience on your resume if you chose to engage in compliance practice full time.

Health care providers can register to become nationally certified as a compliance officer through either www.hcca-info.org to be Certified in Healthcare Compliance (CHC) or www.aapc.com as a Certified Professional Compliance Officer - CPCO. Training for these certifications can be found at www.hceprep.org.

Reference

HCCA-OIG Compliance Effectiveness Roundtable. Measuring Compliance Program Effectiveness: A Resource Guide. HHS website. https://oig.hhs.gov/compliance/101/files/HCCA-OIG-Resource-Guide.pdf. Issued March 27, 2017. Accessed April 7, 2017.