Healthcare Compliance Services

Healthcare Compliance

Your medical practice is subject to countless rules, laws, and regulations. Keeping track of the ones that apply to your practice can be an overwhelming task. But putting healthcare compliance on the back burner isn’t an option. Failing to comply can lead to costly civil and criminal penalties, including jail time.

Unfortunately, noncompliance happens all too often. And most medical practices don’t even realize they’ve committed it…until it’s too late.

This is where I can help. Part of my duty as a healthcare-focused CPA and Certified Healthcare Business Consultant is to make sure your practice complies with all applicable rules, laws, and regulations.

What areas of healthcare compliance should you worry about?

Compliance in healthcare can cover a wide variety of practices and involve observing both internal and external rules. In addition to the notoriously complicated HIPAA requirements, medical practices must follow laws such as the Stark Law, Anti-Kickback Statute, Civil Monetary Penalties Law (CMPL), and the False Claims Act. Medical practices must also comply with Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Federal Drug Administration (FDA) rules, to name a few.

The most common healthcare compliance issues relate to the following:

• Billing compliance
• Fraud compliance
• Human resources compliance
• Compensation compliance (including anti-kickback)
• HIPAA
• OSHA

Why do some practices fail to comply?

It’s easy to overlook healthcare compliance. This is especially true for busy physicians and office managers as well as for practices with inexperienced staff members. Most assume their practice is complying when it’s not, or they simply don’t understand compliance requirements. (I see this regularly in HIPAA compliance.) Pleading ignorance, of course, is no excuse if the auditors come knocking.

How could a compliance program help your practice?

The list of federal and state regulations that apply to medical practices is lengthy, to say the least. It’s nearly impossible to comply with all without a compliance program to follow. Not only does a compliance program give you a plan; it also serves as proof you’re making a good-faith effort to comply.

Part of the complete service package I offer includes developing a healthcare compliance program for your practice. Think of me as the outside eyes looking into your practice. In this position, I can help you proactively manage your practice’s compliance before it becomes an issue.

These three pillars serve as the basis for compliance program development:

• Prevent
• Detect
• Correct

First, I prevent a non-compliance issue from raising its head by assessing your practice’s risk areas. If a compliance issue arises, I detect it through constant monitoring of your practice’s activities. If I do find a problem, we work together to correct it immediately.

Make healthcare compliance a non-issue for your practice

When you’re caring for patients and managing a practice, it can be hard to worry about staying in compliance, too. To find out how working with a healthcare compliance expert can benefit you and your patients, contact me today.