Healthcare Compliance

Happy New Year!

Another year is in the books. Continued challenges face the healthcare industry, including a nursing shortage fueled by high burnout and turnover, hybrid workforces, inequities in access to care, and of course COVID-19.

Every healthcare professional knows about the consequences of compliance issues in healthcare. The role of healthcare compliance officers is to ensure internal policies and external laws and regulations are met by all personnel. These leaders create programs for training employees, reinforce a culture of compliance and stay alert to new trends and regulations.

Explore three key issues healthcare compliance officers should be monitoring in the coming calendar year.

With the growing prevalence of telemedicine comes a growing risk of fraud.

More than 500 healthcare cybersecurity breaches were reported in the past year and have affected more than 5 million patients, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights.

A year after the pandemic, the 25th Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA) Compliance Institute took place virtually this past week. As the healthcare industry adapts to the new normal, HCCA’s conference provides an opportunity for compliance professionals to learn about the latest developments and priorities from regulators.

As I compile PreCheck’s annual list of most popular blog posts this year, I am reminded of everything that we faced in 2020. In a year that transformed the world via the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, PreCheck and our parent company Cisive focused on providing resources for employers and clients to overcome the challenges presented by the coronavirus.

The COVID-19 pandemic has vividly illustrated the high-stakes complexity of healthcare ethics and compliance. In the face of supply shortages, healthcare organizations have been forced to make life-and-death decisions regarding who can receive complete care and who can’t. But when confronted with these incredibly difficult decisions, a strong culture of ethics and compliance provides guidance.

Individuals who engage in fraud or abuse in the healthcare industry can put patients and taxpayers at risk of physical or financial harm. For this reason, the U.S. Office of the Inspector General (OIG) can exclude certain people or organizations from providing services under federally funded healthcare programs. 

In November 2019, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a rule on “bad actors.” The term refers to providers or suppliers whose histories demonstrate conduct or relationships that pose risks to taxpayers, patients or program

As we begin a new decade in 2020, here’s a look back at the most popular posts from the previous year. 2019 was a year with a heightened focus on compliance for employers as I-9 and E-Verify updates are enacted combined with no shortage of state marijuana legislation limiting how employers can drug test their workforce. The nursing talent shortage, healthcare compliance and recruitment conference takeaways, workforce diversity, and employment drug testing are all topics that were most popular among our readers in the past year.