Corporate Compliance

Auditing against the OIG's Compliance Program Guidance for Hospitals

Healthcare Auditing Weekly, November 22, 2005

The OIG's Compliance Program Guidance for Hospitals spells out the government's expectations for ethical conduct in hospital compliance. Conducting a comprehensive audit of your facility's adherence to the guidance demonstrates your facility's commitment to compliance with the government's highest standards. Over the next several weeks, HCAW will outline essential steps for auditing your hospital's compliance with the OIG's program guidance for hospitals.

To begin, evaluate your facility's written code of conduct. Ask the following questions:

  • Has the organization developed standards of conduct for all employees, physicians, clinical staff, volunteers, and board members?

  • Do the standards of conduct include a clearly delineated commitment to compliance by the hospital's senior management?

  • Has the organization distributed the code of conduct to all employees and documented how the code was distributed?

  • Has the code been translated into other languages and written at appropriate reading levels, if appropriate?

    Next week, we will discuss policies for addressing risk areas.

      The above tip is an excerpt from the book "Hospital Auditing and Monitoring: Sample Programs for Key Risk Areas." Copyright 2004 by HCPro, Inc. This book is a step-by-step, practical manual that offers sample audit programs for the most troublesome areas that a hospital must audit. The binder and CD-ROM are filled with actual audit programs used by auditors and compliance officers in the field. Click here for more information or to order your copy today.

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