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Help to protect your facility from would-be whistleblowers

Nurse Leader Weekly, June 13, 2003

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By protecting your organization from fraud allegations, you'll help to save it from a time-consuming and expensive investigation. You'll also limit your vulnerability to a host of other problems, including medical errors that can result from lack of sufficient training and communication, top fraud attorneys advise. Consult the following five steps you can take to protect your organization from qui tam suits.

1. Toughen up your compliance plan's reporting protocols. Most people who file whistleblower suits don't do it for the money, says Ronald Clark, JD, MA, PhD, a health care fraud and abuse litigator for Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin & Kahnin Washington. They do it because management never acts on their repeated attempts to report wrongdoing.

Employees are less likely to report their concerns to a higher authority if they know your organization has an effective internal system for addressing grievances, Clark adds. The plan should have support from all upper management levels and address the root causes of fraud.

2. Review your human resources function. Do employees feel respected by and connected to their supervisors? Supervisors should stay in regular contact with employees so that everyone feels like part of a team, advises Hope Foster, JD, a Washington-based qui tam expert with Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo.

3. Establish protocols for training. Design employee orientation programs with a focus on corporate compliance, Foster says. Employees should not only understand all relevant laws and regulations that govern them, but also be well versed in your organization's protocols for reporting questionable practices.

4. Clear every termination with your organization's general counsel. The attorney will be able to cross-check an employee's name against any ongoing investigations (to avoid any retaliation allegations).

5. Conduct exit interviews. The interviewer should solicit information about possible law violations so the compliance officer can investigate them.

Adapted from: Briefings on Liability Risk Reduction, www.hcmarketplace.com/Prod.cfm?id=1264&S=ENMW.

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