Margaret C. Scavotto (mcs@healthcareperformance.com) is President of Management Performance Associates in St. Louis, MO.
Set Corporate Compliance and Ethics Week aside to educate staff about your compliance program and celebrate your team’s efforts to promote compliance.
The goals of Corporate Compliance and Ethics Week are to:
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Promote the visibility of your compliance program,
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Increase employees’ familiarity with the compliance officer and compliance committee,
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Provide compliance education,
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Inspire employees to recognize non-compliance and report it internally,
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Show employees that your compliance program will help them do their jobs better,
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Demonstrate that your organization’s leaders are serious about doing the right thing, and
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Reinforce compliance principles and keep compliance top of mind.
Each of these achievements will improve staff comprehension of, and trust in, your program.
Find your message
Does your compliance program have a brand, a theme, a slogan, a message, or a logo? It should. A compliance message makes staff aware of the purpose of compliance and keeps it in the forefront. If someone from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) walked into your organization and said to the nearest employee, “Tell me about your compliance program,” what would they hear? How long would it take for that employee to explain your compliance program to the OIG? Would it be a challenging task? A clear compliance message is easier for everyone to understand and articulate.
Here’s a message that I like: “Compliance is here to help.” It’s not that snappy, and it won’t blow your mind, but it’s true, positive, and easy to remember. In a highly regulated industry like healthcare, an employee’s work can feel daunting. Healthcare employees face a daily mountain of potential HIPAA violations, mind-bending questions about arrangements with referral sources, quality assurance challenges, and ethical conundrums.
A compliance program that feels like a hammer makes this worse and makes an employee’s work harder. Compliance should make things easier. And it can! Here are some examples:
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The compliance officer answers compliance questions and makes sure nobody experiences retaliation for good faith reporting.
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The anonymous hotline makes reporting more comfortable for employees.
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Compliance policies show people how to do their jobs in a way that adheres to the compliance program.
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Compliance training (when approached with the right attitude) removes uncertainty and shows employees how to avoid discipline and licensure investigations.
Compliance really is “here to help.” But there are plenty of other ways to brand your program. Maybe, “Connect with Compliance,” “Choose Compliance,” or “Take Comfort in Compliance.” Perhaps you want your compliance slogan to emphasize a different aspect of compliance — like integrity, teamwork, ethics, or patient care.
Whatever slogan you choose, use Corporate Compliance and Ethics Week to showcase it. If you don’t have a compliance message, Corporate Compliance and Ethics Week is the perfect opportunity to find one. Host a compliance slogan or logo contest. Or, hold a brainstorming session with your compliance committee.