Corporate Compliance

Auditing against the OIG's Compliance Program Guidance for Hospitals

Healthcare Auditing Weekly, January 31, 2006

This week, we'll continue our discussion of auditing against the OIG's Compliance Program Guidance for Hospitals with strategies for auditing procedures related to record retention.

To review whether your facility has adequate procedures related to record retention, determine whether the system follows state and federal policies and procedures regarding the creation, distribution, retention, storage, retrieval, and destruction of documents. Your facility should have policies related to the retention of the following:

  • All records and documentation, e.g., clinical and medical records and claims documentation, required either by federal or state law for participation in federal healthcare programs

  • All records necessary to protect the integrity of the hospital's compliance process and confirm the effectiveness of the program, e.g., documentation that employees were adequately trained and reports from the hospital's hotline

    Next week, we will discuss steps for verifying that compliance is an element of a performance plan.

      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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