Healthcare Compliance

On Wednesday, August 31, 2016, PreCheck hosted a complimentary webinar covering background check compliance essentials for employers. PreCheck’s Vice President of Compliance Vu Do and Corporate Counsel Kate Vessey discussed the latest background check best practices for employers in an informative 60-minute learning session.

A new law has expanded the requirements for criminal history checks on employees and owners of home health care and personal services facilities in Indiana. As of July 1, 2016, employers must complete an expanded or national criminal history check on all new hires, and no employee without the check can serve patients in their residences. Owners are also subject to the criminal history check requirement and conviction for specific offenses prohibits anyone from owning a facility or providing services to a patient in his or her home.

Patient safety is the backbone of healthcare and the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) plays a critical role in protecting patients from unfit, excluded practitioners.  The NPDB serves its mission to promote quality healthcare and protect patient safety by operating as a reliable workforce tool for users engaged in credentialing, licensing and hiring decisions.

Last week, the 20th anniversary Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA) Compliance Institute was held in the beautiful Aria resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. While this city is usually associated with bad decisions, copious amounts of alcohol consumption, non-stop gambling (until your wallet permits, that is), it has some good parts, too. It’s a great place to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Compliance Institute, for one. And despite its fast-paced environment, Vegas can also be a great place for healthcare compliance officers to share ideas, relax and unwind.

Compliance is always a top concern for healthcare organizations, and staying on top of the newest regulations and requirements is paramount. One of the latest developments is the Justice Department’s move to create an office of compliance counsel.

Establishing an ethical culture was one of the top five hot topics identified by healthcare organizations, according to a recent survey from the Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA). Ethics is an issue across every industry.

In the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE) and the Health Care Compliance Association’s (HCCA) Compliance and Ethics Hot Topics for 2016 Survey, employers across all industries selected social media compliance risks as the second highest area of concern, second only to cybersecurity and cybercrime. For healthcare employers, however, social media compliance risks was the top concern.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that a hospital did not violate the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) when it refused to hire two nurses whose licenses were restricted due to past drug abuse.

Employers and human resources leaders have seen several changes to their background check process and policies in the last few years. Today, the increasing number of class-action lawsuits and ever-present threat of data breaches have prompted employers to review their current screening practices and apply proper safeguards to protect patients and their sensitive healthcare information.

I recently attended an exclusion screening webinar from the Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA), “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Exclusions But Were Afraid to Ask.” After listening to the 90-minute presentation with attorneys Mary C. Malone and W. Clay Landa from Hancock, Daniel, Johnson & Nagle, P.C., it was very clear that healthcare exclusion screening is an extremely complex and quite frankly intimidating area of compliance.