In this five-part podcast series, I am taking a deep dive into healthcare monitoring and how the pro-active use of a healthcare monitor can positively impact all stakeholders in the healthcare industry: the regulators, the healthcare industry and the consumers of health care services, the public. I am joined in this exploration with two individuals at Affiliated Monitors, Inc. (AMI), the series sponsor, Catherine A. Keyes, Vice President of Operations, and Jesse Caplan, Managing Director of Corporate Oversight. In this Episode 2, I visit with Caplan on the significance of proactive assessment in healthcare ethics and compliance program in determining culture.
Caplan noted that not every healthcare participant has a good handle on how effective their compliance program is and whether the culture of the organization is such that compliance risks are likely to be timely identified, mitigated and remediated. However an independent integrity monitor can help healthcare participants to do a thorough pro-active assessment of a healthcare organization’s ethics and compliance program and culture.
An independent compliance expert can bring a fresh set of eyes to any organization or entity. Such an expert can provide several valuable inputs to any organization including: demonstrating to the Board organization’s ethical culture and effective compliance program; identify gaps or weaknesses in the compliance program when a healthcare organization has a problem, for instance, a compliance problem where the government gets involved; provide recommendations for remediations demonstrate to government regulators the seriousness and effectiveness of the organizations compliance program; educating an organization’s workforce; and, finally, sending a strong positive message throughout the entire organization that they take compliance very seriously and expects the workforce to take it seriously as well.
There are multiple ways to conduct a pro-active assessment of an organization’s ethics and compliance program and AMI selects the style and techniques which best fit the situation. Caplan noted some of these techniques can include areview of applicable policies and procedures, whether the organization has a hotline which is use and compliance training.However, Caplan emphasized such techniques can only get you so far.
This means you need to also perform an assessment of compliance program effectiveness by a variety of mechanisms such as determining if the compliance policies and procedures are effectively implemented, whether staff are familiar with and truly understand their compliance obligations and even whether they feel they can communicate compliance and ethical concerns or questions without fear of adverse consequences.
We next turned to how to make such an assessment. Here Caplan noted there are several ways to do so. It can include interviews with individual employees, focus groups with larger numbers of employees, visits to not only the corporate headquarters but also remote company locations and, of course, the analysis of all relevant data. He provided an example where AMI would test a hotline and how, when complaints come in, they are actually handled. Such testing would use all these techniques including employee interviews, focus groups meetings and review of data on hotline complaints and case closure rates and data.
A proactive assessment can be used in times simply beyond when an organization may have a reason to believe that it has an ethics or compliance problem. It can be used when there is a change in leadership and the new leadership team wants to see more precisely where they may be on the ethics and compliance scale. It can also be used when there is a major acquisition or a healthcare provider establishes new business units or even goes into new markets.
In some situations an independent evaluation team may be called to work collaboratively with others such as outside counsel. It all starts with the value of the pro-active assessment that they are independent and unbiased which gives them greater credibility with stakeholders. However, the organization and evaluation team can and should work collaboratively to develop the work plan and target potential risk areas. There should also be collaboration in deciding findings and recommendations of the assessment to be communicated. All of this helps to provide an independent, unbiased proactive assessment of a compliance and ethics programs and can make the organization stronger and the workforce more engaged in compliance.
One of the key differences in healthcare as opposed to perhaps the energy or tech sector or another commercial enterprise, is that the government and the regulators would prefer not to exclude healthcare providers from the healthcare industry. This means even if a healthcare provider has a compliance issue, the government and regulators may be loathed to deliver an ultimate sanction and put a healthcare provider out of business. Access to quality healthcare providers is a continuing issue within the industry and particularly for government programs like Medicaid. One of the reasons is that not every healthcare provider is willing to participate in Medicaid programs and, particularly for vulnerable populations, there can be an inadequate number of healthcare providers available to treat those populations. This means from a public policy perspective, whether it is the federal government or state government departments of public health, they all want to have as many quality providers as possible so people and the patients have adequate access to those services.
This can sometimes run up against the tension of healthcare providers in those areas of medical services who have run into difficulties that could pose a threat to patients and the public or could pose a threat to the public financing by misusing or abusing the funds that are being paid. This means that the government or regulators must be comfortable that the problems an organization has have been remediated and will be addressed so that those issues will not arise going forward. If using an independent integrity monitor can help the government by meeting these two objectives of both quality providers and providing sufficient access for its citizens, it is a win for all involved.
Next up, using independent integrity monitoring in licensing and disciplinary proceeding.
For more information on how an independent monitor can help improve your healthcare entity's ethics and compliance program, visit our sponsor Affiliated Monitors at www.affiliatedmonitors.com.