Compliance Basics

Using Incentives in Your Compliance and Ethics Program

While incentives are common in businesses, homes, schools and other contexts, the use of incentives in the context of compliance and ethics programs has been slow to catch on. This has been true because many

believe that most employees will naturally "do the right thing." Unfortunately, the evidence suggests just the opposite. Without adequate controls and incentives, most of us will (at least occasionally) do the wrong thing.

Joe Murphy’s paper on aligning incentives provides a road map for organizations which understand the incentive imperative but have been struggling with execution. It is a must read for every compliance

and ethics officer, as well as for board members and management who are concerned about the impact of non-compliance.

Compliance Training Video: 
Explaining the need for Compliance to your CEO

Use this video to break the ice at your next board meeting

Corporate Compliance for the Health Care Professional

This section provides an overview of the seven elements of corporate compliance programs and a glossary of commonly used compliance acronyms.

Brief overview of health care compliance
The move by many in the health care industry to develop corporate compliance programs came after passage of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. This Act gives the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General and the U. S. Department of Justice more investigational funding and authority to increase penalties for health care fraud and abuse. Using these and other enforcement tools the government continues to investigate health care institutions across the U. S. searching for violations of the False Claims Act and other federal laws.

To protect their institutions from liability, health care providers are implementing corporate compliance programs using the seven elements outlined in the U. S. Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations and appointing corporate compliance officers to develop, implement, and manage them.

While law does not require an organization to meet the Guidelines seven elements of a compliance program, these elements provide the backbone of a well-designed compliance program. An organization that is found guilty of violating federal criminal laws and has a compliance program in accord with the Guidelines, may reduce assessed penalties by up to 70% against the fines that the law requires.

The U. S. Sentencing Commission was created by Congress in 1984 to promulgate the U. S. Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations and the U. S. Sentencing Guidelines for Individuals to increase sentencing uniformity for those found guilty of violating federal laws. To encourage good corporate citizenship, the Commission outlined a punishment structure based on the culpability of the organization and the seriousness of the crime.

U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Revisions:
Effective Compliance and Ethics Programs
Click here to download the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines revisions regarding an effective compliance and ethics program.