New compliance professionals benefit from a variety of resources to ramp up their knowledge and value. If you’re new to the healthcare compliance field (or know someone who is), save and share this article 

Getting Started for Early-Career Compliance Professionals 

The 20+ foundational resources that follow were curated from the YouCompli resource library. This set is tailored specifically for early-career compliance professionals. Start reading for ideas to build your: 

• Leadership skills 
• Operational credibility 
• Cross-departmental influence 

Read Expert-Sourced Content Designed for Professional Development 

Written for (and sometimes directly by) healthcare compliance executives, the information is practical and easy to understand. 

The articles focus on a variety of important topics: 

• Communication and Professional Growth for New Leaders 
• Operational and Audit Fundamentals for Building Compliance Expertise 
• Technology and Strategic Planning for Regulatory Change Management 
• Compliance Program Building and Oversight 
• Video Hub: Expert Guidance for Healthcare Compliance Professionals 
• Downloadable Tip Sheets for Quick Ideas and Actions 
   

Pick where you need help most today and dive in. (A few resources fall into multiple categories, so you get double the return when you read them.) 

Communication and Professional Growth for New Leaders 

From soft skills to dollar signs, these articles cover areas that sometimes get neglected in more formal compliance leader training. These expert resources cover aspects of compliance communications you might not find anywhere else. Learn about the persuasive communication skills that are the secret superpowers behind strong compliance leaders.  

Aggressive vs Assertive Communication: What New Healthcare Compliance Officers Need to Know  

Get advice tailored for new leaders on building authority and articulating compliance risks without creating unnecessary friction. New compliance executive can learn how to speak with authority and assertiveness without damaging cross-departmental relationships.  

This article covers:  

• Key differences between two common communication styles  
• How assertive communication benefits the compliance program  
• Strategies to help you master this skillset 

Integrate Self-Awareness into Healthcare Compliance Programs: 18 Tips  

Being aware of how we do our own work is paramount for an effective compliance program and incorporating self-awareness into your healthcare compliance program can enhance its effectiveness. For example, it improves your ability to empathize with the challenges operational leaders face when adjusting a process to meet a regulatory requirement. To help build awareness, explore these 18 actionable tips for compliance officers. 

Financial Literacy: The “Superpower” Every Modern Compliance Leader Needs  

For effective healthcare compliance leaders, financial literacy isn’t optional. Compliance risk often hides in the fine print of financial data, making literacy a prerequisite for effective oversight.  Explains key financial concepts so business newcomers can align compliance goals with executives’ organizational priorities.  

By confidently speaking the language of finance with terms like liquidity, capital planning and debt financing, compliance officers move beyond being seen as a “cost center” and the “Department of No.”  Instead, compliance can become a guardian of the organization’s financial sustainability, ensuring that compliance is integrated into every high-level discussion, from annual budgeting to long-term strategic growth.   

Operational and Audit Fundamentals for Building Compliance Expertise 

Business operations are essential partners in a good compliance program, and audits are foundational to healthcare compliance in those areas. These resources drill down into both, explaining how to reduce friction and frustration through proactive partnerships and education.  

Audit Readiness? How about Audit Etiquette?  

In this blog, experts offer the real scoop on audit readiness in healthcare. It outlines crucial operational protocols and relationship dynamics for leading teams through smooth, defensible audits. Learn the unfiltered truth about compliance audits and what audit etiquette means. Get essential tips on: 

• Preparing for audits 
• Role of healthcare compliance auditors 
• What to do (and what not do) during an audit 
• What does audit readiness mean? 

Healthcare Quality Leadership: How to Be an Operational Partner, Not a Roadblock  

In every organization, there’s a moment where the quality department becomes either the trusted operational partner or the operational roadblock. The difference between the two comes from how you communicate, assign responsibility and how you follow through. This blog explains how to adopt the OG style for more effective quality programs in healthcare, with “Three Ways to Partner like a Pro.” Direct the strategies that shift compliance from a gatekeeper to a strategic business enabler. 

Three Tips for Strong Compliance Education Practices  

Compliance orientation educates new staff members about company policies, procedures, and various regulations that govern their specific roles. Ongoing compliance training ensures that as regulations evolve, all employees are appropriately educated on implications and requirements. With its emphasis on risk management, compliance training protects both employees and organizations from legal and ethical pitfalls.  

A good understanding of compliance helps employees safeguard the company against lawsuits and reputational damage. Get core principles and three tips for clear, memorable staff training programs that drive actual behavioral change. Two experts – one in education and one in compliance – share advice and analogies to improve your compliance education practices.    

Technology and Strategic Planning for Regulatory Change Management 

Technology and strategy have a lot in common. We expect both to be versatile and responsive, while at the same time, they have to hold up and carry the organization over the long term. These selections explore ideas that will help novice leaders leverage technology to drive strategy and value.  

What to Look for in Regulatory Change Management Software for Healthcare Compliance 

The ROI of tools like the YouCompli Analytics Dashboard comes from actionable, on-demand information to reduce the risk of noncompliance, fines, and reputational damage. Further value comes from efficient, centralized documentation, dashboard details and insights into completed work. Get a practical checklist to help new leaders evaluate software capabilities for tool selection. Learn six non-negotiables for regulatory change management software and processes. 

AI Guide for Healthcare Compliance Leaders  

From Manual to Scalable: How to Manage Healthcare Compliance Risk 

Despite recognizing it as a top risk year after year, many organizations still manage regulatory change as a monitoring activity. Updates are tracked. Summaries are circulated.  But when change actually occurs, the organization is left to work out (often manually and inconsistently) what the change means and what to do next.  

From a systems-thinking perspective, this is a structural failure, not an execution problem.  In this piece, Lisa Estrada explores systems-thinking strategies to move beyond manual processes and build a scalable regulatory compliance process.  

Compliance Program Building and Oversight 

During your compliance career, you may have opportunities to build a program or at least manage one. Using the metrics and collaboration-building practices covered in these resources will set you on the path. 

5 Strategies for Compliance Accountability Across the Organization  

While supporting operational teams in finding compliant solutions is part of your role, becoming the de facto fixer of what constitutes “operationally friendly” is beyond your scope. That piece must be owned by operations.  The challenge becomes how to get operational leaders to take ownership to resolve their own compliance challenges. 

These five strategies will help you encourage your operational leaders to take responsibility for their particular compliance issues, while preserving your role as a trusted advisor. Respected compliance professional Jay Anstine outlines methods for instilling shared ownership of compliance requirements across clinical and administrative business units.  

Beyond the Penalty: What Metrics Should Healthcare Compliance Officers Track? 

How Slowing Down Makes for a More Productive Compliance Program  

As regulations change or investigations are needed, we often get pushed to work faster, meet tighter deadlines, and juggle multiple tasks simultaneously.  

While this approach might seem efficient on the surface, it often leads to serious downsides: 

• Burnout 
• Decreased productivity 
• Decline in the quality of work  

This interesting piece focuses on transitioning from reactive firefighting to building deliberate, repeatable compliance processes. You’ll get five solid tips to help you and your compliance team slow things down in a good way. 

Video Hub: Expert Guidance for Healthcare Compliance Professionals 

While we can’t go into all of them here, the YouCompli video library is packed with useful visual learning materials.  Explore the full catalog, featuring expert interviews and practical strategies. 

Real Conversations. Practical Compliance Insights. 

Where do you need ideas and advice? 

• Compliance Leadership & Mindset 
• Influence, Trust & Seat at the Table 
• Operationalizing Compliance  
• Efficiency, Clarity & Saving Time 
• Customer Perspectives & Real‑World Experience 

Hear directly from compliance leaders who understand the realities of the work. These short videos share honest perspectives on simplifying regulatory requirements, building trust with the business, and turning compliance into a strategic advantage. 

Downloadable Tip Sheets for Quick Ideas and Actions 

For the compliance leader on the go (isn’t that all of us?) the Tip Sheet Library offers quick, useful information. Explore the collection and start downloading tip sheets to start your own handy idea file. 

• Compliance Career Tips 
• Compliance Culture 
• Compliance & Business Strategy 
• Healthcare Quality 
• Industry Trends 
• Rev Cycle 
• Rules and Regulations 

Need More Specialized Support for Your Healthcare Compliance Program? 

Not only does YouCompli have educational resources to help compliance professionals, we also human resources who can help. If you’d like to speak to someone to answer any questions, just reach out. 

Download our Latest Whitepaper

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The post Resources to Accelerate New Healthcare Compliance Careers  first appeared on YouCompli.

This thought leadership update explains why it’s more important than ever to communicate in a common language. The piece brings compliance executives up to speed on the role of language and communication in today’s compliance programs. Fresh insights and tips capture the current views of the original author, Jerry Shafran, a compliance industry veteran and seasoned, effective communicator.  

With Compliance Maturity Come Higher Expectations 

Since I originally wrote this, compliance has become harder. It has matured as a function, and when that happens, other areas of the organization naturally raise their expectations.  

One expected hallmark of a mature business function is a defined, repeatable vocabulary. That way, when compliance professionals and outside departments share a common language, everyone understands each other, reducing friction in workflow and in relationships across the business. 

Communications as Part of Compliance Lifecycle Management Methodology 

The original blog talked about a methodology we refer to as compliance lifecycle management or regulatory life cycle management. Either way, the role of a methodology is to provide common ground, and communication is a big piece of that. When in place and working well, components of compliance methodology lead to better communication. 

Nothing in compliance happens without good communication, and we built our software based on this understanding. The software provides a reliable framework for required communications that healthcare compliance teams need. 

Communications Span Different Health System Groups and Perceptions 

Even if you lack a common methodology for regulations, you still have multiple departments dealing with constant regulatory change. Each department may do things differently — or do nothing at all — if you don’t clearly communicate the steps they must take to comply. 

With a good methodology, everyone understands their responsibility and where it resides in the process. And that’s why language is a key part of compliance methodology. 

Regulatory Compliance Must Tailor Language to the Audience 

Across the facilities and departments within a health system, people bring different expertise and understanding. You’ll need to give each department a clear way to comply with the regulation, and each may need its own approach to arrive at that goal. 

In such a setting, language can either lead to understanding or misunderstanding. As people communicate cross-departmentally or interdepartmentally, a common language is essential for reducing friction, delay and even risk.  

When dealing with so many different areas, compliance executives need different communication styles based on the audience.   

Adjust your style based on: 

• What you’re trying to convey 
• Who you’re trying to convey it to 
• How much time you have to convey it 
• What you want them to do with the information 

These variables affect how you choose to communicate with each audience. 

Example: How to Deliver Communications They Remember 

Imagine you’ve got a group of 100 people in a room looking at a PowerPoint presentation, and the set of slides is filled with bullet after bullet. If all you’re doing is reading those points, you’ll lose that audience very quickly.  

Instead, use a more contextual style where: 

• You share the fact or point you want to convey. 
• Then provide a relevant story your audience can connect to. 

Four Tips to Improve Compliance Communication and Language 

Follow these proven tips for effective communication and productive outcomes. 

1. Know your audience. 

2. Understand how your audience perceives your role. 

3. If you don’t know what their perception is, ask. Never assume. A safe way to ask is, “Tell me how you perceive compliance people?” or “What’s your perception of people you’ve come into contact within this role?”  

That’s a good way to phrase it so people will be more comfortable and honest. If you ask them point-blank “How am I doing,” your audience might be reticent to share their true perceptions. It’s another example of how the language you use impacts communications and relationships. 

Comfort levels and transparency are important. Keep in mind that not everybody is open or transparent, not because they want to be dishonest, but because it’s not always comfortable. 

4. To be a good communicator, you yourself have to be willing to be vulnerable and open about own your flaws and foibles. That gives people you engage with a path to connect to you at a human level, because they have the same problem, but may not be as comfortable talking about it. 

Navigating the AI Frontier: Communication and Culture in a Digital Age 

As with many other facets of work life, artificial intelligence is affecting how we speak, write and interact with each other. With AI agents generating human-like emails, text messages and internal updates, technology is stepping into conversational spaces once reserved for human interaction. 

While these new AI tools offer undeniable efficiency, they also present a unique challenge for healthcare compliance leaders: AI can replicate human syntax, but it cannot replicate organizational culture.  

When technology outpaces our shared compliance language, communication breaks down and creates deep-seated, hard-to-fix issues. 

Hidden Compliance Communication Risk: Dilution of Meaning 

Building a true compliance culture relies on a common organizational language that is best forged through human-to-human connection, whether one-on-one or one-to-many. 

When communication shifts heavily to automated or purely electronic channels, the rules of engagement change, and crucial nonverbal context gets lost: 

• Missing Cues: Digital channels strip away voice inflections, intonations, eye contact and hand gestures. 
• Diluted Intent: Without these physical or tonal guardrails, the true meaning of a message easily gets diluted, leaving room for assumptions and misinterpretations. 

A Real-World Example of Electronic Miscommunication 

Consider a simple administrative example from the field. An employee sending an email requesting extra tickets for an annual company outing typed the entire message in capital letters. They weren’t trying to yell or be aggressive. They simply didn’t understand the digital etiquette that all-caps signifies shouting. 

In a compliance setting, similar subtle gaps in digital literacy or tech-driven communication can inadvertently spark tension, mask urgent risks or alienate teams. 

Four Vulnerabilities Healthcare Compliance Leaders Must Consider 

As AI agents and digital channels become more embedded in your organization’s workflow, a unified compliance shorthand becomes more critical, not less. Without a grounded, human-centric language strategy, the disruption caused by AI will expand exponentially. 

To prevent poor communication practices from taking root, leaders should look closely at four critical vulnerabilities: 

• Fragile Culture: If your team doesn’t have a deeply rooted sense of organizational culture, technology might define it for you. 
• Absence of a Common Baseline: Without a predefined “compliance vocabulary,” automated text and human responses will drift apart, creating disjointed expectations. 
• Inconsistency Across Channels: A language strategy must span consistently across traditional face-to-face updates, standard emails and automated AI touchpoints. 
• Festering Misunderstandings: Because electronic text lacks tone, misunderstandings happen fast. If leaders don’t proactively address and correct these gaps, they quickly become cultural liabilities. 

The Bottom Line: The “language of compliance” isn’t just about the words on a page or a policy block. It’s about how those words are deployed and felt across the organization.  

As technology scales, compliance leaders must intentionally protect the human elements of communication to ensure clarity, trust, and ultimate alignment with regulations. 

Business Benefits of a Common Compliance Language 

Turning Communication Benefits into Data to Prove Compliance Value 

Measuring the intangible benefits of a shared compliance language is exactly what gets leadership and the Board to lean in. They want to see how culture translates into operational efficiency and risk reduction. 

Here’s how healthcare compliance leaders can convert qualitative benefits into concrete, board-ready metrics: 

1. Minimizing Misunderstandings and Boosting Productivity 

The Benefit: All members understand expectations. Time formerly spent correcting errors is now spent productively. 

Instead of trying to measure “understanding,” measure the reduction of friction caused by a lack of it. 

• “Time-to-Resolution” for Compliance Inquiries: Track how long it takes to close out basic compliance questions or internal reports. A shared language means less back-and-forth clarifying what a policy actually means, shortening the cycle. 
• Rework and Error Rates in Documentation: Partner with Quality Assurance or Billing/Coding to track the reduction in documentation errors or rejected claims stemming from “misinterpreted guidelines.” 
• Policy Attestation and Quiz Data: Move beyond completion rates. Track the average score on post-training compliance quizzes. A higher baseline score across departments indicates the language is actually sticking. 

2. Consistency for Staff and Patients 

The Benefit: Consistency throughout the organization enhances the image, cohesiveness, and reliability of the health system. 

Consistency can be measured by looking at how external and internal stakeholders perceive your reliability. 

• Patient Satisfaction Scores (HCAHPS): Look specifically at communication metrics like “Communication with Nurses/Doctors” or “Discharge Information”. When staff uses a unified, compliant language regarding patient rights, privacy and care expectations, it reflects in patient trust. 
• Standardized Scenario Testing: Conduct “mystery shopper” audits or drop-in assessments across different clinics or departments. Or present the same compliance scenario to different teams and measure the variance in how they explain the resolution. Lower variance = higher consistency. 

3. Creating an Operational “Shorthand” 

The Benefit: Provides a sort of language shorthand among the organization’s community of management and staff. 

An effective shorthand speeds up corporate velocity and reduces administrative drag. 

• Onboarding Velocity: Measure the time it takes for new hires (or contract clinical staff) to reach full compliance competency. If a common language exists, onboarding friction decreases, and “time-to-productivity” shortens. 
• Compliance Hotline / Helpdesk Efficiency: Track the volume of inquiries that can be resolved on the first contact (first contact resolution rate). A shared shorthand allows staff to articulate their issues clearly and helpdesk agents to resolve them faster without escalation. 

4. Cultivating a Strong Compliance Culture 

The Benefit: Creates a sense of culture — a major factor in organizational success. 

The OIG explicitly looks for a culture of compliance. You can quantify this shift directly. 

• The “Speak-Up” Metric (Reporting Volumes vs. Anonymity): A healthy compliance culture doesn’t mean zero reports. It means a steady stream of them. Track the ratio of named reports versus anonymous reports. As trust in the common culture grows, anonymous reporting typically drops because staff feel safe using the shared language to flag issues. 
• Annual Culture/Engagement Surveys: Insert two or three targeted pulse questions into the annual employee engagement survey. For example, “I understand what is expected of me regarding compliance,” or “Management uses clear, transparent communication regarding ethical issues.” Track the year-over-year positive shift. 
• Corrective Action Plan (CAP) Adherence: Measure how quickly departments implement CAPs after an infraction. A cohesive culture takes ownership faster, resulting in speedier compliance with corrective actions. 

Board-Room Tip for Presenting Compliance Metrics 

When presenting regulatory compliance metrics like these to the Board, bucket them into two categories:  

• Risk Mitigation such as lower error rates or survey shifts 
• Operational Efficiency such as time saved, faster onboarding  

This shows that compliance isn’t just a cost center; it’s an organizational value engine. 

In closing, the language of compliance should be like the language of anything. It should be supportive, simple to understand, and help whoever is listening to perform the work that the compliance team needs done. 

Would you like to know more about building common language and communication into your regulatory compliance practice? Reach out for a conversation.

The Original Idea Still Holds

When we first wrote about building a common compliance language, the goal was simple: help everyone involved in regulatory change understand the process, their responsibilities, and what successful completion looks like.

That foundation remains relevant. An effective regulatory change process should include:

• Identifying and documenting new regulatory developments
• Assessing their relevance to the organization
• Translating requirements into specific operational actions
• Communicating expectations to the appropriate stakeholders
• Assigning clear owners and deadlines
• Implementing the required changes
• Verifying completion and preserving evidence of the response

The terminology has evolved, and the original Compliance Lifecycle Management worksheet referenced in this article is no longer available. Today, YouCompli describes this broader discipline as Regulatory Operationalization, the process of turning regulatory change into assigned, completed, verified, and defensible action.

The tools may change, especially as AI becomes part of compliance work, but the need for shared language, human judgment, clear accountability, and documented follow-through remains the same.

The post Building a Common Compliance Language in the Age of AI first appeared on YouCompli.

Healthcare compliance leadership requires choosing between the “hard” of stagnation and the “hard” of growth. This post by John R. Nocero and Andrea L. Bordonaro explores how to move beyond basic regulatory tasks toward strategic Revenue Integrity and Operational Excellence. 

Regulatory compliance leadership isn’t for the faint of heart. Every day, leaders in our field face a fundamental choice that dictates the future of their organizations and their careers. It’s a choice between two distinct types of “hard.” 

One path leads to a plateau of administrative burden, while the other leads to a breakthrough in operational excellence. To move the needle on key compliance metrics, you must decide which challenges you’re willing to embrace. 

The Big Job of Regulatory Change Management 

Regulatory change rarely lives in one department. It touches:  

• Compliance  
• Revenue cycle  
• Legal 
• Clinical operations  
• IT 
• Quality 

Someone must translate regulatory language into operational tasks that those teams can execute. That translation step is where many organizations struggle. Well, guess what? You’re the translation step. 

Someone must translate regulatory language into operational tasks that those teams can execute. That translation step is where many organizations struggle. Well, guess what? You’re the translation step. 

Pick the Hard Work and Then Do It 

The compliance professional’s goal is to move metrics. Period. Whether it’s an outcome of no findings during a state inspection, ensuring everyone is signed off on education and training modules, or the weekly operational numbers posted for the entire organization to see, it’s your responsibility You know the work needs to happen. The challenge is getting the organization aligned around it. And that’s hard. 

Your organization’s leaders trust you to handle it, and they probably see you as capable of doing more. This visibility is an advantage, especially if you want to move up in the organization. But be aware, because corporate and everyone else is watching, looking for cracks in the armor or making you out as the target.  

Our advice? Choose your hard. Here’s how.  

Choose Your Hard: Two Options  

We all want an easier professional life. Less stress from daily meetings. More happiness from the validation of receiving praise from a job well done. Fewer complications from multiple people coming to your door every day to solve problems that aren’t yours.  

Here’s the truth nobody likes to admit: There’s no easy path. There’s only a choice between hard options. So, choose wisely.  

As we see it, you have two options: 

Option 1: Keep Doing What You’re Doing: The Administrative Burden of Stagnation 

This isn’t difficult. You’re basically choosing to do the same things you’ve been doing in the same manner. Keep leading the daily morning compliance meeting in the same style. Keep walking through the units waving and shimmying around but not really being authoritative or looking for issues. Talking to employees but not finding anything out, just basically wasting time. 

And please, avoid the hard conversations around people constantly interrupting you with their problems instead of doing what you get paid to do.  

This is hard, but not for the reason you think. This is hard because, well, we know you, you’re busy, but not productive. You are seen, but you aren’t really doing anything. You think you’re managing, but you’re really just walking around. 

You Get Credit for Moving the Needle, Not for Inertia 

You also think you should be promoted and moved up for doing what you’re supposed to do.  

Here’s the hard truth. You don’t get credit for the things you’re supposed to do. If you’re supposed to lead orientation, write policies, make presentations, all that is in your job description. It’s a basic function of your job. You’re not getting additional credit for that. You get credit for moving the needle, not stagnation.  

This version will feel easy in the moment. But over time, it becomes a cycle. Anxiety creeps in. Stress builds quietly. Communication gets messy. You start telling yourself little lies to stay comfortable. You get moments of happiness, but they don’t last because they’re built on escape, not stability. 

When a compliance department functions as a separate silo rather than a strategic partner, the friction is constant. You’re working hard, but you are not working toward a breakthrough. You are merely surviving the administrative weight of healthcare regulations. 

Option 2: Face Challenges Head-on: The Discipline of Operationalizing Compliance 

The alternative is the “hard” of growth. This involves the difficult work of Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) integration, fostering cross-functional alignment, and ensuring that compliance is viewed as a driver of healthcare quality and patient safety. 

It takes discipline to move beyond the checklist and into this strategy. It’s “hard” because it requires changing the culture of an organization, but it’s the only path that leads to: 

• Sustainable Revenue Integrity: Moving from reactive auditing to proactive prevention.
• Enhanced Patient Safety: Aligning regulatory requirements with frontline clinical care. 
• Professional Authority: Establishing compliance as a core pillar of the leadership team. 

Cut the noise. Reduce the dopamine overload. Sit with discomfort instead of running from it. Say the hard things. Build better habits. Run different meetings. If your boss is giving you a directive that you have to go and talk to the director of nursing and get his or her staff to carry out a particular order, don’t walk up to them and go “Hey, boss, wants you to do this” and tell them exactly the same order that was told to you. That’s not changing. That’s parroting.  

You need to do that a bit differently, such as “boss wants your team to do XYZ. Do you know how to do this? Does your team know how to do this? What are the gaps? What can I do for you right now?” 

The Hard Path Is Uncomfortable but Pays Off Over Time 

See the difference? It’s subtle, but effective. Basketball fans can think of it as the difference between telling your basketball team to run the triangle offense and perfecting the triple-post with all your front court repeatedly until it’s second nature, creating multiple scoring options based on defensive reactions. When you repeatedly do the hard thing, it pays off over the long term. 

This hard path is uncomfortable, and at first, it feels worse, not better. It’s hard to sit in the discomfort. But over time, something starts to change. Your brain slows down. Your emotions stabilize. You stop needing constant stimulation just to feel okay.  

And one day somewhere down the line, you realize: You’re not chasing happiness anymore or trying to be the part. You don’t need to wear a three-piece suit to the corporate board meeting. You can wear a Roman Reigns OTC crewneck. You don’t have to pretend to be the part. You are the part. And you are just experiencing it. 

Choosing the Tough Option Compounds the Benefits 

The tricky part about Option 2 is that it doesn’t feel like it’s working at first. That’s where most people quit. Option 2 is harder. But it compounds. It’s the difference between escaping your life and actually building one you don’t need to escape from.  

Be a long gamer because taking the “easy” path now often becomes the hardest life later. And the hard path now? That’s the one that sets you free. 

Andrea has taught first grade in Willoughby, Ohio for 27 years in the same classroom that she attended school as a child. She earned a Bachelor of Science in elementary education with a minor in language arts from John Carroll University and a Master’s Degree in the Art of Teaching and Education from Marygrove College. 

John builds and fixes quality departments, while currently thriving as the Administrator & Director of Quality, Risk Management and Compliance at River Vista, a behavioral hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

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The Q-Kids – John R Nocero and Andrea L Bordonaro – are experts at everything quality, regulatory, education training and compliance and love sharing their knowledge on YouCompli.

Follow them on LinkedIn – for more quality content or send them a message – they’d love to hear from you.

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The post The Compliance Leadership Paradox: Why You Must Choose Your Hard  first appeared on YouCompli.

You Can’t Manage What You Can’t See 

I get into the hospital about 5am every day. I go to intake and get the daily census sheet and report it out to the providers. I walk upstairs and I get my census sheets for all four units. I call in a fourth provider if needed. I review my e-mails.  

But at 7:30 am every day, I round. No exceptions. Weekday. Weekends. Holidays when I am supposed to be off. Doesn’t matter. I round. It has to be done, because I can’t manage what I can’t see.  

You Need to Manage Healthcare Risk 

So many times, compliance administrators and quality leaders sit in their office and manage through e-mail. Say they are too busy. Too many things to do. Yeah, too many meetings. But the truth is, you need to manage risk. 

Risk comes in many forms . Financial. Patient-related. But the biggest unforeseen risk to me is reputational. If you don’t have a reputation for offering the best patient care while keeping people safe and patients receiving benefits from treatment, you won’t be successful. You won’t make money. You won’t care for patients. You need to see it. Firsthand.  

You can’t manage what you can’t see. Here’s how I round.  

What We Look for During Compliance Rounding 

I walk onto the units through the front entrance and immediately talk to the charge nurse.  

• Do you have enough staff?  
• Is everyone listening to you?  
• How is your census?  
• Do you have any events to report?  
• What is the “temperature” of the unit?  

I then walk down the hall and look in everyone’s room. Are the doors locked? Any ligature risks? Any contraband – things like cups, extra linens, things that someone could harm themselves with? You can’t manage what you can’t see. I walk into each room and just look.  

• What is its condition?  
• Are there any screws loose?  
• What does the milieu look like? Is it calm?  
• Are patients interacting with each other?  
• Are they respectful?  

Then up to all the techs. Same questions, plus ones like these: 

• Have patients gotten showers?  
• Are you tired? Do you need to break?  
• What do observations look like? Are they up to date?  

I then walk through the nurse’s station to the sister units and do the same thing. Same questions. Then downstairs to the other two units. Same thing. Same questions.  

You can’t manage what you can’t see. It takes about 45 minutes total, and it’s the most important part of the day. We have cameras, and I could look at the cameras and do this. But so much would be missed. You need to get onto the units. Why? Because you can’t manage what you can’t see.  

Why In-Person Observation Is Valuable Compliance Practice 

There are three main reasons why I do rounding and in-person observation:  

1. Presence: I have to have a presence on the units. Staff need to see me and see me holding them accountable. They know I’m going to come by every day. Same time. They need to be ready. No questions. No excuses. Plus, it shows I care. I do care about every member of the staff. I want them to get used to seeing me on the floor. Pull me aside. Tell me things. That’s important.  
2. Safety: No one should feel unsafe here, so I’m always looking around for contraband or things that patients can use to harm themselves. Cups and linens as I said but there are things that sometimes make it up to the units. Like shoelaces for example. Now, you take it for granted. Loop, swoop, pull and tie your shoes. A self-harming patient can see that as something more. I look at the environment, too. A loose light or a loose screw can be thrown or even swallowed. You need to stay on top of it. If I see something, I tell my Plant Operations Director and put in a work order to have it fixed immediately.  
3. You can’t manage what you can’t see: This is the most important reason and the one I keep bolding. The only way to know what is going on is to be present. Management by walking around is a thing. When I changed a process a couple months ago, the staff was outraged. We can’t do this, that or the other. Then I walked the units. People on phones. Laughing. Looking calm. You ain’t stressed. That changed fast. Funny how that happened.  

Get Real-Time View of What’s Happening in Your Organization 

Only by being present can you get a real-time view of what’s done, what’s stuck and what is slipping through the cracks. Visibility is power. And I finished this round at 7:28. Two minutes to get upstairs, where they’re also expecting me.  

More Resources About Compliance and Risk 

Ready, Set, Go! Identifying Emerging Risks in Your Annual Compliance Workplan 

Before moving on from this year, it’s important to take time and get feedback from business partners to ensure an “outside-in” perspective is included in your 2026 plan. Compliance expert Jenny O’Brien, JD, MCHDS, CHC shares proven practices.  

The Why, What, Who, and When of Healthcare Risk Assessments   

Sharon Parsley, JD, MBA, CHC, CHRC discusses risk assessment from a “why, what who, and when” perspective. She also looks at ways that you, as an effective compliance officer, can lead this process with your colleagues. 

Andrea has taught first grade in Willoughby, Ohio for 27 years in the same classroom that she attended school as a child. She earned a Bachelor of Science in elementary education with a minor in language arts from John Carroll University and a Master’s Degree in the Art of Teaching and Education from Marygrove College. 

John builds and fixes quality departments, while currently thriving as the Administrator & Director of Quality, Risk Management and Compliance at River Vista, a behavioral hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

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The Q-Kids – John R Nocero and Andrea L Bordonaro – are experts at everything quality, regulatory, education training and compliance and love sharing their knowledge on YouCompli.

Follow them on LinkedIn – for more quality content or send them a message – they’d love to hear from you.

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The post Risk Visibility Isn’t Optional in Healthcare Compliance  first appeared on YouCompli.

Healthcare compliance/accreditation professional Amy Laufmann, MBA, has held a variety of quality and compliance roles for over ten years in multiple settings. Currently the Client Success Manager at YouCompli, she works with healthcare organizations across the country every day, from single-state healthcare systems to systems spanning nationwide. She shares her experience not only having worked in the field, but also the knowledge and insight gained from supporting organizations using the YouCompli compliance software to manage regulatory compliance changes in their organizations. 

Let’s Talk Regulatory Change Management and Compliance Software

In this expert interview, Amy shares insight surrounding compliance management software (like YouCompli) and examples of what it takes for organizations to be successful.

Question: What are the advantages of using compliance software?

Amy Laufmann: Compliance software allows for automation number one, and then accountability.

As far as automation is concerned, the software offloads manual tasks from compliance teams. Essentially, automation skips the manual process of fighting through all the noise and duplications to find out what regulations apply and then delivers it directly to the department accountable for completing the work.

It brings you quickly and directly to the point of starting the compliance work that needs to be done in response to regulatory changes.

YouCompli helps compliance teams start at that point, as they are alerted to regulatory changes that impact their organization. They also get information on what needs to be done to share directly with the impacted departments.

Q: How Do You Know if You’re Catching All the Right Regs?

AL: I remember working at an organization where we had just hired a new Chief Compliance Officer, who was meeting with our team. He asked how our team ensures that we’re monitoring all applicable federal and state rules, and updated accreditation standards.

The team was silent, because despite our best efforts, the process of listserv notifications and the endless newsletters and different compliance organizations did leave concern that something could easily be missed. I’m not going to lie… despite my best efforts, the thought of “What did I miss?” really did surface occasionally.

It’s important to note that software automation eliminates the challenge of simply finding all the rules and regulations that organizations need to be aware of before even getting started doing the work.

Special Care Needed for State Regulatory Changes

Additionally, state regulatory changes are not always the easiest to monitor, track and implement. Often, hospital associations and government relations departments help get important bills on the radar of compliance teams.

However, government websites or other legislative tracking web applications are essentially online libraries. Their results often include bills both passed or not, supported or opposed, and it can be very cumbersome to translate that information into where bills are in the process, which are passed, failed, signed by the governor, etc.

If you know what you’re looking for, great. If you need to find out what should be on your radar, you can very easily miss something and have difficulty finding what you need, especially for those things that may be a bit more obscure, like healthcare transportation.

How Compliance Software Provides Closed-Loop Accountability

That brings me to the second advantage, accountability. Compliance software provides accountability for those folks responsible for implementing the regulatory change and clearly identifying what work has been done in order to comply.

Compliance software has tools built within it to manage that workflow. It can alert staff when they’re assigned work related to regulatory changes, as well as those who need to monitor that work when it’s been done.

Compliance is all about closing the loop and documenting what’s been done, and compliance software automates this process through workflow to ensure the loop gets closed.

Q: It sounds like compliance teams could use help. What features should organizations look for in a compliance management tool?

AL: Compliance management software must include all the regulators you care about. It has to include both federal and state rules and regulations and centralize that information to ensure it funnels into your organization from one source. If I’m going to invest in a compliance solution, it must eliminate the need for me to care about any other noise when it comes to monitoring regulatory changes.

In addition to one source of truth, the ability to have workflow is crucial, as compliance work is typically a very manual process of spreadsheets, tracking, notes and emails scattered across many different places in an organization.

Compliance software should include workflow that allows compliance teams to assign tasks, provide information, and track regulatory work. It should maintain that information within reach of not only compliance teams, but other stakeholders like managers and directors who may want oversight on work impacting their teams, as well as completion status.

Guidance About Compliance Reporting Tools

Lastly, compliance management tools should include the ability to report on the state of compliance work within an organization. What if you could see on-demand and in real time all regulatory work assigned, in progress and complete without having to pull information from multiple spreadsheets, departments, forms, etc.

Compliance software should allow your organization to identify the department, date ranges, status type, or even users and the associated regulatory work.

Reporting within compliance software can help you:

• Identify the state of assigned, in progress, overdue, and completed regulatory work.
• Spot bottlenecks where compliance work is not progressing.
• Are there users, departments, or types of regulations that are going unaddressed?
• Spot departments or individuals who address compliance work in a timely manner and keep their impacted areas in compliance with regulatory changes.
• Who deserves recognition and kudos for getting the work done?
• Facilitate communication and credibility for compliance teams as experts on the state of compliance within their organizations.

Recap: What to Look for in Compliance Management Software

In summary, compliance management software should provide:

• Single source of information to ensure your organization is reviewing all necessary regulatory changes, that is, all the regulatory information your organization needs to know.
• Workflow automation to assign, monitor and complete regulatory work.
• Centralized database to store all information and documentation to implement regulatory changes.
• On-demand reporting to observe all regulatory work, current state and departmental impact for both high-level teams like leadership, as well as detail-level reporting to monitor work assignments by department, user or effective dates.

Compliance Management Goal: Eliminate as Much Risk as Possible – And Software Helps

Healthcare organizations and the compliance teams within them won’t often come out and say it, but 100% compliance 100% of the time just isn’t possible. It is nearly impossible to be ahead of the regulatory change game all of the time and have everyone in an organization compliant with every rule and regulation on the books.

If that were the case, things like billing errors, overpayments, self-disclosures, ADRs and plans of correction would cease to exist.

The point is to eliminate as many potential areas of compliance risk as possible. Compliance software lends itself very well to getting the high value/high risk/high impact regulatory work addressed but still doesn’t let regulatory changes less likely to cause reputational damage or severe financial penalties fall off the radar. It ensures that when capacity and resources are available, those changes too are addressed.

Compliance software like YouCompli provides a valuable, comprehensive picture of the landscape in your organization.

Q: How fast can you go live with compliance software in an organization?

AL: This is a question I get asked all the time, and if I’m honest, I have a love-hate relationship with it. First, let me say if an organization were to purchase YouCompli, ultimately, I could have the software live and sending you notifications of all regulatory changes the same day your desired regulators, jurisdictions and users are identified.

The challenge here is not how quickly we can flip the switch and provide the software to you. It’s really identifying the organization’s goals in using the software in order to either support or improve upon them when we turn on the software.

Launching compliance software within healthcare organizations can be as simple or as complicated as they wish it to be. My job is to help organizations understand how the software works to support and improve their regulatory change management processes.

Four Requirements for Quick, Successful Regulatory Software Roll Out

A lot of the success or failure of this process has to do with a few common themes within a timeframe that’s realistic for the health system.

• Strong support from leadership and communication from senior leaders clearly outlining expectations and processes for utilizing compliance management software.
• Compliance teams have good manual processes in place and want to optimize their efficiency and eliminate time spent on manual work.
• Organizations have clear roles and expectations for responsibility in completing regulatory work in existing structures.
• Compliance is viewed as a part of operations but needs a framework of standard processes and automation to support their efforts.

Integrate with Existing Compliance Processes or Start from Scratch?

When You Have Processes

When organizations have a good foundation to manage work related to regulatory changes, compliance software can almost immediately support that process and make it much less time-intensive by automating all manual parts of the existing framework.

When You Need Processes

For organizations needing compliance software to support a new process or to build a framework for ensuring regulatory work is completed, the software is still quite simple to implement. We provide a framework outlining the process, steps involved and required information, so your organization has an outline for success from day one.

Q: What Do You Need to Roll Out Compliance Software?

AL: Implementation and roll out depend on an organization’s ability to provide the following information:

• Jurisdictions and Regulators: What federal regulators, MACs, and state jurisdictions apply to your organization? (YouCompli provides a list for your organization to select/include in your system.)
• Regulatory Assignments: What do you want the workflow process to look like?
  • Centralized Assignments: All regulatory changes are funneled through compliance teams for review before assigning task work to impacted departments.
  • Decentralized Assignments: All regulatory changes are funneled directly to identified department leaders who are responsible for managing and completing regulatory work specific to their department. (YouCompli provides a “regulatory rolodex” for you to identify department-level, automated assignments.)
• Software Administrator and General User Training Sessions:
  • YouCompli administer training typically consists of one 45- to 60-minute session for leaders who will use the software to manage and oversee regulatory work.
  • YouCompli general user training sessions include a 30-minute overview of how to use the software to complete any assigned regulatory work.

Q: What Should You Know about Software Training and Ease of Use?

AL: Ease of use and training are worth noting because ultimately everyone wants the software to be used.

Speaking of the YouCompli solution specifically, the software is easy-to-use and provides step-by-step instructions guiding users through the process of completing assigned work. It includes on-demand training videos directly linked to those steps, as well as responsive and proactive support not only during implementation, but throughout your time using the YouCompli software.

This support comes directly from our team of industry experts who provide credible, reliable and actionable information. The support crew includes people who’ve worked directly within healthcare compliance, as well as attorneys.

So, when I’m asked how quickly can we go live with YouCompli, the answer is as fast as you’d like. However, to set your organization up for success, I most often recommend identifying a timeline that aligns with ensuring your software is well-utilized and that you get the most value from configuring it.

Q: Do healthcare organizations need to be concerned about privacy and security with compliance tools?

AL: YouCompli specifically is a cloud-based software that enables organizations with web access to use standard username and password access. The software lets organizations easily assign and manage user roles and provides the ability to control what those different roles have access to in the solution.

We also set up Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) which allows the software to authenticate users on an organization’s network and bypass password entry entirely.

The compliance software is not HIPAA-compliant and should not be used to store protected health or confidential information. This is something you will always want to check for any software your organization evaluates.

Most importantly, you want to ensure that the security and privacy that a compliance tool does or does not provide is clearly communicated to all users.

Q: Any Additional Thoughts to Share?

AL: Healthcare compliance is complex. It touches every department within a healthcare system, but it is often an underdeveloped program. I think despite all of the advancements in technology, tools and applications, finding software that actually works for healthcare compliance teams is difficult, and the value of finding a great one is underrated for this particular field.

I currently work for YouCompli, and of course I’m going to be promoting that solution, but I think it’s important to note that I’m only a YouCompli Client Success Manager because first I was a YouCompli client.

My passion for improving access to technology and tools to support regulatory compliance teams and helping them get the most value and support when using software is why I’m here.

I’ve worked at health systems using YouCompli, and I’ve worked at health systems for quite some time without YouCompli. I’ve experienced first-hand the vastly significant difference it made for compliance teams and the organizations they serve, and I can’t imagine working directly in compliance without it ever again.

Q: Ready to Take the Next Step Towards Confident Compliance?

With so many capabilities and benefits, what’s holding you back from learning more about compliance management software and confident compliance? Here are other resources you might want to look at.

White Paper: Empowering Compliance Officers to Drive Better Health and Business Outcomes – How effective regulatory change management practices help healthcare organizations mitigate risk

White Paper: The Opportunity for Compliance to Create Value for Healthcare Organizations – Best practices for demonstrating how compliance makes an impact

White Paper: Doubling Your Impact: Demonstrating Compliance’s Value and Shaping Culture – Best practices for proving your value in five key areas.

Amy Laufmann is client success manager at YouCompli. She has 10+ years of experience in healthcare compliance and operations, and is passionate about helping healthcare organizations operate better and deliver better patient outcomes.  

Take Free RL3M Assessment (Regulatory Lifecycle Management Maturity Model)

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Qualified compliance professionals do the heavy lifting for you, simplifying regulatory change management  

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27 Ungated Resources for Compliance Leaders and Teams 

Compliance professionals sometimes feel undervalued in comparison to other functions in their organization. They think leaders and colleagues don’t really understand what they do.  

These resources will help. Packed with ideas, tips and recommendations, these pieces were written by professionals with many years of compliance experience. 

You can quickly skim for articles that relate to your needs and interests. Bookmark this page as a reference for future questions or projects.

Visit Now

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• One Compliance Pro’s Regulatory Change Management Process    by Amy Laufmann, MBA
• Five ways to show how healthcare Compliance delivers value by Jerry Shafran
• Revenue Cycle Management Compliance: Ensuring… by Maya Turner, CPMA, CPCO, CFPC, CPC, CPC-I, AAPC
• Three Strategies to Align Compliance with Revenue Cycle  by CJ Wolf, MD
• 12 key metrics for compliance officers looking to… by Kenneth Zeko, JD, CHC
• Mitigating Conflicts of Interest that Drive Profit… by Susan Thomas
• How the Three Lines Model Strengthens Healthcare Compliance by Kenneth Zeko, JD, CHC
• New Regulation– Now What? Step-by-Step Guide to… by Amy Laufmann, MBA
• Transforming Compliance to a Department of Yes  by Lisa Herota, RHIA, CHC, CHPS, CCS Compliance & Privacy Officer
• Navigating Compliance Responsibility: A Foundation… by Amy Laufmann, MBA

The post Expert Advice: Compliance Software Q&A with a Compliance Professional  first appeared on YouCompli.

On a daily basis, compliance officers are asked to find solutions to a variety of operational requirements. For example, consider a regulatory change requiring the organization to adjust an operational process in order to bill for a particular service. In this case, the solution must be compliant and operational-friendly, but who’s responsible for making that happen? 

While supporting operations in finding compliant solutions is part of our role, becoming the de facto fixer of what constitutes “operationally friendly” is beyond our scope. That piece must be owned by operations.  

The challenge then becomes how to get operational leaders to take ownership for resolving their own compliance challenges. 

Five Strategies to Help Operational Leaders Take Responsibility 

These five strategies will help your operational leaders take responsibility for their particular compliance issues, while preserving your role as a trusted advisor. 

#1 Use a “Coach” Mindset, Not a “Gotcha” One 

If you want your leaders to take more ownership of their own compliance challenges, then position yourself as a coach who helps them think through problems and find solutions—not as a person who catches mistakes. 

To pull this off, you need to be intentional about the types of questions you ask. More specifically, you want to ask curiosity-based questions, not judgmental ones. Here are some examples of guiding questions you can ask as you’re helping them find a solution:  

• What challenges are you facing right now? 
• Is there a part of this new regulatory change that feels uncertain to you? 
• What steps do you think you need to take to address this issue? 
• What’s one small step you could take today to move forward? 
• What options or solutions have you considered? 

Know When to Step In and When Not To 

Having a coach mindset also means knowing when to step in—and when not to. For example, your role is to escalate compliance risk when appropriate (e.g. a deadline looks like it’s going to get missed), but it’s not to do the operational work for them (e.g., following up with a subject matter expert for their input).  

If a leader doesn’t take action despite your support, then resist the urge to fix it yourself. Instead, document it and elevate appropriately within your organizational structure to bring about resolution. 

Having a coach mindset encourages operational leaders to own their compliance challenges because when leaders feel heard and supported, they’re more motivated and invested in their work to find a solution. Also, by supporting those closest to the work in addressing issues, it leads to more practical (and often) faster solutions. 

#2 Frame Risk as Operational Risk, Not a Compliance Burden 

In my experience, operational leaders are more likely to engage when compliance is framed in business terms and not compliance jargon. For example, instead of reading or citing regulations, explain the operational impact of the requirement to them. Talk about things like billing delays, lost revenue, patient safety, or reputational damage.  

Additional topics to consider when framing risk as operational risk include: 

• Patient care 
• Staffing 
• Operational costs 
• Budget variances 
• Workflow 

Framing risk as operational and not as a compliance burden helps promote ownership in solving compliance challenges for a couple of reasons. First, this approach speaks their language. When you frame risk in terms that operations understand, they’re more likely to grasp the urgency and relevance of the ask.  

Second, it makes the problem theirs—not yours. If the risk is shown to impact their budget, performance metrics, or reputation, they’re more likely to feel responsible for addressing it.  

Finally, presenting risk in this way increases engagement and accountability. When compliance risks are reframed as disruptions to their performance goals—employees naturally step into problem-solving mode and take accountability.   

 
#3 Stay Curious, Not Critical 

In my experience, the most effective way to approach communications with operational leaders when it comes to compliance is one rooted in a curious mindset, not a judgmental one.  

For example, let’s assume a leader did not follow through on something they said they would do. A judgmental way to respond would be: “You said you would do this, but clearly that meant nothing.” On the other hand, if you said, “Tell me what challenges you’re facing in moving this forward?” that comes across less adversarial, and more likely to produce a collaborative discussion.   

To help compare and contrast the two approaches, consider these additional examples: 

Taking a curiosity-based approach helps support leaders in solving their own compliance challenges because it builds psychological safety by inviting open dialogue and new perspectives. In my experience, operational leaders are more likely to think creatively when they don’t feel scrutinized.  

#4 Make It Easy for Leaders to Act 

Like compliance officers, operational leaders face constant pressure, decision fatigue, and competing priorities—all of which leads to cognitive overload. Relatedly, if the problem-solving process feels overly complex or burdensome, leaders are likely to disengage or defer responsibility.  

To that end, making compliance easier for your leaders doesn’t mean dumbing it down—it means removing friction. (YouCompli Software is designed for this.) 

When you need support, free up mental bandwidth demands by simplifying the work. Clearly communicating expectations or removing unnecessary steps frees up their mental bandwidth. In my experience, when leaders feel less overwhelmed, they are more likely to engage with issues and take initiative.  

So how can you make the work easier for them? Here are some examples that may help: 

• Explain compliance language in terms they can understand. 
• Take the initiative to set up and facilitate root cause analysis discussions. 
• Coordinate and facilitate stakeholder calls to discuss solutions. 
• If they’re feeling stuck, suggest a series of smaller goals to achieve the work. 
• Provide templates, decision trees, checklists, or other tools to make compliance easier. 
• Offer potential solutions (but as pointed out above, don’t take on the work involved.) 

Making the work easier for your operational leaders encourages them to solve their own compliance challenges because it makes the process more approachable and less threatening. That, in turn, increases their willingness to participate and take ownership. When leaders feel less overwhelmed, they are more likely to engage with issues and take initiative.  

#5 Recognize and Reward Ownership 

Finally, another way to foster operational ownership is to call out your leaders (publicly or privately)—in a good way of course—when they take the initiative to solve their own compliance issues.  

For example, let’s assume an audit was conducted in a clinical department related to medical necessity documentation. As part of a corrective action plan, monitoring is needed to ensure the documentation is in the patient’s medical record. If the department director proactively develops a tool for monitoring and vets it with you, then in response, you might say:  

“I really appreciate how you took ownership to proactively develop this tool. That kind of initiative supports us in maintaining a strong culture of compliance in the organization.” 

If leaders only get attention when their problems are escalated to you, they learn to seek approval through dependence. Recognizing effective problem-solving flips the script. It signals that ownership and resolution—not escalation—are what gets rewarded. 

Here are some ways you can recognize and reward your leaders:  

• An unexpected handwritten thank you note directly to the leader, or better yet, the leader’s supervisor  
• One-on-one verbal recognition 
• A note sent from the Chief Compliance Officer (if that’s not you) to the leader 
• Public recognition in a department or team meeting 
• Nomination for a leadership award 
• Feature in a compliance or organizational newsletter 

Recognizing and rewarding great work is helpful for motivating leaders to solve their own compliance challenges. It creates a positive feedback loop where those behaviors become self-reinforcing and then contagious to others on the team. 

Compliance work is complex, and compliance work requires human interaction. That is especially true when it comes to getting your operational leaders to find solutions to their own compliance challenges.  

By following the strategies outlined above, you empower operational leaders to manage their own compliance risks. Just keep in mind that it is a process that takes time, but in the long run, an empowering leadership style will improve buy-in to your program and create a more cohesive culture of compliance.

Download a free PDF Tip Sheet Version of this blog below.

Jay is a compliance professional and consultant in Colorado. He is a healthcare lawyer with significant industry knowledge of the U.S. healthcare market. Over the past 20 years, he has worked for large for-profit and non-profit health systems and small physician-owned entities. In tackling the countless regulatory and operational issues for these diverse organization types, he has developed a deep understanding of the business of healthcare and the regulations governing the industry. 

Take Free RL3M Assessment (Regulatory Lifecycle Management Maturity Model)

RL3M Assessment

Download our Latest Whitepaper

Sign-up for our Weekly Newsletter

Qualified compliance professionals do the heavy lifting for you, simplifying regulatory change management  

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27 Ungated Resources for Compliance Leaders and Teams 

Compliance professionals sometimes feel undervalued in comparison to other functions in their organization. They think leaders and colleagues don’t really understand what they do.  

These resources will help. Packed with ideas, tips and recommendations, these pieces were written by professionals with many years of compliance experience. 

You can quickly skim for articles that relate to your needs and interests. Bookmark this page as a reference for future questions or projects.

Visit Now

---

• One Compliance Pro’s Regulatory Change Management Process    by Amy Laufmann, MBA
• Five ways to show how healthcare Compliance delivers value by Jerry Shafran
• Revenue Cycle Management Compliance: Ensuring… by Maya Turner, CPMA, CPCO, CFPC, CPC, CPC-I, AAPC
• Three Strategies to Align Compliance with Revenue Cycle  by CJ Wolf, MD
• 12 key metrics for compliance officers looking to… by Kenneth Zeko, JD, CHC
• Mitigating Conflicts of Interest that Drive Profit… by Susan Thomas
• How the Three Lines Model Strengthens Healthcare Compliance by Kenneth Zeko, JD, CHC
• New Regulation– Now What? Step-by-Step Guide to… by Amy Laufmann, MBA
• Transforming Compliance to a Department of Yes  by Lisa Herota, RHIA, CHC, CHPS, CCS Compliance & Privacy Officer
• Navigating Compliance Responsibility: A Foundation… by Amy Laufmann, MBA

The post 5 Strategies for Compliance Accountability Across the Organization  first appeared on YouCompli.

Aligning healthcare regulatory compliance with revenue cycle management is critical to mitigating risks and preserving business integrity. This blog explores three effective strategies to foster collaboration between compliance teams and revenue cycle management.  

Some of the most significant compliance risks faced by healthcare organizations today are found in the revenue cycle. The HHS OIG has stated, “One of the best ways to identify fraud and abuse risks is to follow the money.” 

For many healthcare organizations, this means having a good working relationship with the entity’s revenue cycle team.  

The revenue cycle is the process that starts with a patient’s initial appointment and ends with full payment for services. It encompasses all the administrative and clinical functions that contribute to collecting patient service revenue.  For healthcare organizations that provide services to patients, the revenue cycle is the organization’s financial lifeblood. 

3 Ways Compliance Can Stay Connected with RCM 

If compliance has a good working relationship with revenue cycle management, the two functions can enjoy a fruitful outcome.  

Compliance professionals should consider the following three ways to interact with the revenue cycle team. 

1. Regular Collaboration 

We know from OIG guidance documents that, to be effective, the compliance officer should maintain a degree of separation from the entity’s delivery of healthcare items, services, and related operations.  

Even though this means the compliance officer should not be responsible, either directly or indirectly, for the delivery of healthcare items and services or billing, coding, or claim submission, it does not mean the compliance officer should not be well-versed in these functions through regular communication and collaboration. 

Take Advantage of Compliance Committee Connections 

Regularly collaborating with the revenue cycle team will inform compliance professionals of the specific risks and potential compliance red flags the revenue cycle may be facing.  Many organizations ensure this collaboration by having revenue cycle leadership serve on the organization’s compliance committee.  

In fact, the OIG states the compliance committee “…should be comprised of the relevant leaders of both operational and supporting departments, which could include Billing and Coding, Clinical and Medical, Finance, Internal Audit, IT, HIM, Human Resources, Legal, Quality, Risk Management, Sales and Marketing, and other operational managers.”  Most of the departments suggested by the OIG play a role in the revenue cycle. 

In addition to revenue cycle personnel participating in the compliance committee, collaboration between compliance and revenue cycle can occur on a weekly basis through meetings and sharing of revenue cycle data such as denial rates, reports from electronic claims editors, communications from third party payors and any internal coding and billing monitoring the revenue cycle is performing. 

2. Proactive Claims Auditing  

The OIG tells healthcare providers that they “…should take proactive measures to ensure compliance with program rules, including regular reviews to keep billing and coding practices up to date as well as regular internal billing and coding audits.” 

In organizations that submit claims for services, a sizable number of resources should be dedicated to ensuring the claims they are submitting for reimbursement meet all program requirements.  

The revenue cycle team should have monitoring efforts in place for correct coding and billing.  Also, compliance departments should ensure that independent claims audits are also occurring regularly. 

Assisting Revenue with 60-Day Repayment Rule Requirements  

Even if an entity makes innocent billing mistakes, they have an obligation to repay the money to government third-party payers such as Medicare and Medicaid. The Affordable Care Act included a requirement that entities must report and repay overpayments by the later of: “(A) the date which is 60 days after the date on which the overpayment was identified; or (B) the date any corresponding cost report is due, if applicable.”  Sometimes this is referred to as the 60-day repayment rule. 

If a revenue cycle team’s internal monitoring identifies overpayments, it is critical for compliance departments to know the date of discovery, so the organization does not run afoul of the 60-day repayment rule. If the entity does not monitor the repayment requirements, they could be subject to liability under the Federal False Claims Act. 

3. Training and Education Geared to Job Roles 

Coding and billing rules are regularly updated and can change frequently, and it’s often difficult for busy clinicians to stay on top of the changing regulations. Compliance and revenue cycle teams should work together to ensure those involved in revenue cycle functions are educated on the most current rules. 

The OIG recommends targeting training depending on an individual’s role. Thus, those involved in revenue cycle operations need to provide training and education specific to the nuances of the revenue cycle. The training sessions should cover any compliance risks specific to the learners’ roles and responsibilities.  

Depending on the learners’ roles, these may include: 

• Billing 
• Coding 
• Documentation 
• Medical necessity 
• Beneficiary inducements 
• Gifts 
• Interactions with physicians  
• Other sources or recipients of referrals of federal healthcare program business 

Three Ways to Show You Follow the Money

If healthcare organizations are going to address their biggest compliance risks, they must include the revenue cycle. Compliance professionals can lead in addressing revenue cycle risks by: 

• Driving effective collaboration between compliance and revenue cycle teams 
• Verifying that proper auditing and monitoring of claims are occurring  
• Ensuring those involved in revenue cycle receive targeted training based on their specific role.  

Doing these three things helps show your compliance program is indeed “following the money” as suggested by enforcement agencies such as the OIG. 

About Solutions for Compliance Management and Operations 

Need help keeping track of everything going on in regulatory management? When multiple people and departments are involved, the last thing stretched compliance teams need is more manual work.  

YouCompli compliance solutions keep cross-functional engagement organized, verified and on schedule.  

• Identify and assign specific individuals responsible for completing regulatory requirements. 
• Track progress and on-time completion of all regulatory requirements. 
• Verify that regulatory requirements have been acted upon within the organization. 
• Gauge and quantify potential areas of risk related to incomplete regulatory requirement assignments. 

Detailed reports equip compliance teams with oversight information they need to effectively communicate, act on, monitor, and focus organizational compliance efforts. 

Combine YouCompli solutions with the three best practices in this blog to build productive connections with Revenue and other departments.  

More Resources About Revenue Cycle Management and Compliance 

If you’re interested in learning more about the Revenue angle of healthcare compliance, here are a few additional resources: 

White Paper: Exploring the Four Hot Spots Of the Healthcare Revenue Cycle 

Case Study: Getting It Right: Minimizing Self-identified Overpayments & Maximizing Accurate Billing 

Tips and Tactics: Revenue Cycle Management Compliance: Ensuring Financial Health in Healthcare 

CJ Wolf, MD, M.Ed. is a healthcare compliance professional with over 22 years of experience in healthcare economics, revenue cycle, coding, billing, and healthcare compliance. He has worked for Intermountain Healthcare, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the University of Texas System, an international medical device company and a healthcare compliance software start up. Currently, Dr. Wolf teaches and provides private healthcare compliance and coding consulting services as well as training.   

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27 Ungated Resources for Compliance Leaders and Teams 

Compliance professionals sometimes feel undervalued in comparison to other functions in their organization. They think leaders and colleagues don’t really understand what they do.  

These resources will help. Packed with ideas, tips and recommendations, these pieces were written by professionals with many years of compliance experience. 

You can quickly skim for articles that relate to your needs and interests. Bookmark this page as a reference for future questions or projects.

Visit Now

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The post Three Strategies to Align Compliance with Revenue Cycle  first appeared on YouCompli.

Assertive Communication Skills for Compliance Officers | 8 Steps 

A career in healthcare compliance can be both exciting and overwhelming. You’re tasked with ensuring regulations are followed; risks are managed, and ethical standards are upheld—all while working with clinical and administrative leaders who may have vastly different priorities. 

When it comes to the compliance program, effective communication is essential for building strong relationships, resolving conflicts and gaining buy-in. One of the most valuable interpersonal tools to help you achieve these goals is assertive communication. It allows you to express your thoughts, needs and boundaries in a clear and respectful manner.  

But here’s the challenge—it’s easy to confuse being assertive with being aggressive.  

Understanding the difference between these styles can help you avoid unnecessary conflict and communicate more effectively when it comes to compliance-related needs.  

In this article, I cover: 

• Key differences between the two communication styles 
• How assertive communication benefits the compliance program 
• Strategies to help you master this skillset 

What Is Assertive Communication? 

Assertiveness is a positive form of communication that uses a balanced approach. You express your opinion about something that you want (which is placing value in yourself), while respecting the opinions of the other people involved (which is placing value in others). 

For example, let’s assume your audit plan includes a review of medical necessity documentation for your cardiac rehab program. Let’s further assume the program’s director insists her unit doesn’t need to complete the audit, nor does she have available staff to complete the work.  

Assertive communication might look like you saying:  

“I understand your team is extremely busy right now. However, cardiac rehab billing has been the subject of a number of government settlements lately, and we want to make sure our practices can withstand a government investigation or audit. What if we work together to find the least disruptive approach for your team to complete the work?” 

This response is assertive because it acknowledges the program director’s concerns while communicating a compliance need.  

An assertive approach has several benefits:  

• First, it shows respect for yourself, which can help build confidence and self-esteem as you are expressing your needs in a positive manner.  
• Second, it’s an effective way to resolve conflict because you place equal value on everyone’s opinions.  
• Finally, it strengthens the relationship because you demonstrate respect for others.  

What Is Aggressive Communication? 

Aggressiveness is a negative form of communication. When you communicate aggressively, you offset the above-noted balance by sending a message to others that your opinion has a higher value than their opinion. It tends to be forceful, disrespectful, and often disregards the needs or perspectives of others.  

Let’s circle back to the scenario involving the cardiac rehab audit for a moment. The following might look like aggressive communication when responding back to the program director:  

“This is completely unacceptable. If your team doesn’t care about complying with the regulations, I’ll escalate this to your supervisor and let them know you’re putting the organization at risk.” 

Yikes.  

Such a response is aggressive because it uses blame, sarcasm, threats and an authoritarian tone.  

An aggressive approach can create several risks for the compliance program.  

• While it may produce short-term results, it damages trust and long-term relationships, reducing your chances of buy-in.  
• Taking such an approach demonstrates an intent to shut down dialogue at a time when you need it most for your compliance program activities.  
• It creates an environment where operational leaders feel reluctant to seek your advice. This can result in little messes becoming big ones because leaders are not reaching out to you proactively.  

Key Differences between Aggressive and Assertive Communication 

Generally speaking, assertive communication focuses on standing up for yourself. Aggressive communication focuses on attacking others. To help distinguish the difference, consider the following comparison and ask yourself—which feels more respectful?  

3 Ways Assertive Communication Drives Compliance Success 

Healthcare compliance officers often deal with sensitive topics like billing errors, patient privacy breaches or improper medical record documentation, all of which, by their very nature, can be emotionally charged situations. This makes good communication more important than ever. 

Assertive communication helps when it comes to carrying out sensitive compliance work for three main reasons.  

1. It nurtures your professional relationships.  

Assertive individuals communicate openly (i.e., sharing the good and bad news), which leads to trust and mutual respect while preventing resentment and misunderstandings. Open communication also fosters collaboration, productivity and teamwork. These traits are important when it comes to things like finding a compliant solution to a business proposal or carrying out corrective action plans. 

2. It improves self-confidence and decision-making.  

When individuals advocate for their needs and opinions, they feel more empowered. This confidence leads to better decision-making and problem-solving skills. Assertive communicators are willing to ask questions, clarify expectations, and negotiate effectively. This benefits work such as investigations, internal consulting and auditing.  

3. It encourages respect and professionalism.  

Assertive communication promotes a culture of mutual respect. When you communicate in a way that sets clear expectations and provides constructive feedback, you create an environment where ideas are valued.  

When it comes to things like implementing a new operational process to meet a requirement, or handling a government payer refund, compliance officers must communicate expectations, provide guidance and handle conflicts professionally. These are characteristics of an assertive style that will improve your results. 

Jay is a compliance professional and consultant in Colorado. He is a healthcare lawyer with significant industry knowledge of the U.S. healthcare market. Over the past 20 years, he has worked for large for-profit and non-profit health systems and small physician-owned entities. In tackling the countless regulatory and operational issues for these diverse organization types, he has developed a deep understanding of the business of healthcare and the regulations governing the industry. 

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The post Aggressive vs Assertive Communication: What New Healthcare Compliance Officers Need to Know  first appeared on YouCompli.

Maintaining quality in compliance training is a constant challenge for healthcare organizations of all sizes. Any surge of regulatory changes necessitates prompt, effective training programs for staff, yet the process of developing and delivering quality learning can be daunting.  

Crafting tailored educational content takes significant time and effort, especially for regulatory topics, while coordinating group sessions can feel like herding cats. Simply populating a Learning Management System (LMS) with generic material often yields lackluster results and managing it all with spreadsheets and emails adds to the chaos.  

For example, one large California health system faced the daunting task of creating, delivering and completing training for pharmacy techs within a tight 10-day window following a new privacy waiver. And that’s just one of many examples happening weekly if not daily across all health systems. This scenario underscores the need for proactive compliance training that not only meets regulatory demands but also engages staff effectively.  

This article by learning and compliance experts explains how compliance teams can get on top of training programs and deliver quality results.  

Why Training Fails in Corporate Healthcare Settings and How to Fix It 

Training fails in corporate settings (including healthcare organizations) because people don’t know how to train. HR or Quality departments typically handle training, not actual teachers, according to Erika Stevens, MA, FACRP, director of clinical research experience and faculty lecturer for MS Clinical Research Management Track at Rutgers Health. She addressed this issue at the Association of Clinical Research Professionals 2024 Annual Conference.  

Stevens also made note of the need to incorporate engagement best practices into the training of clinical research professionals. “Clinical trials continue to be complex, even for those of us who have been involved in them for many years, and not just in terms of how do we involve the patients, but how do we prepare the professionals to engage them?” 

Exactly. Here’s how to raise the quality of regulatory compliance training in your healthcare organization. Read this article for insights, tips and training best practices. And BTW, one of the experts IS a teacher. 

Context Means Learning in Training Situations 

On a recent episode of the Art of Manliness podcast, Scott Young, author of Get Better at Anything: 12 Maxims for Mastery, shared three key factors for learning:  

• Seeing

• Doing

• Listening

A significant component of human learning lies in the ability to act on and interact with the surrounding environment. So, to a large extent, the ease of how we learn from others determines how quickly we can improve. 

To see and learn in the world of business, we need to group professionals together during orientation. Then keep them together through the duration of work, no matter their job titles, to practice team-building skills and to be accountable to the group as well as to themselves. 

Encourage Deliberate Practice in Compliance Training 

Secondly, mastery requires “doing” through deliberate practice, which refers to a special type of training that is purposeful and systematic.  

While regular practice might include mindless repetitions, deliberate practice requires focused attention and is conducted with the specific goal of improving performance.  

Progress requires constant adjustment based on not just the red stroke of a teacher’s pen but on the results of hands-on experience.  

Feedback Is Key Ingredient of Compliance Education 

Whatever a person’s role, they need to repeat tasks and hone skills time after time. Training becomes about taking any action and then making course corrections based on feedback.  

Why Feedback Is Needed 

• Helps people flex and grow into new skills, capabilities and roles 
• Creates more positive and productive relationships 
• Helps to reach goals and drive business value 

Speaking of feedback, let’s put this one on the managers. In our fast-paced clinical research world, being clear and brief is gold. No one has the time or the attention span (thanks, TikTok) for long-winded explanations. Keep it crisp. Use technology. 

Technology Teaches 

Tech solutions are being combined with basic education principles to transform compliance training workflow and tracking. To improve corporate training in any capacity, organizations should borrow from various education principles and utilize technology, such as: 

• Active Learning & Engagement: Encourage participation through interactive discussions, problem-solving exercises, and hands-on activities rather than passive lectures. 
• Storytelling for Retention: People remember stories better than raw data. Framing training within real-life scenarios and relatable experiences increases comprehension and recall. 
• Personalized & Adaptive Learning: Use blended learning models, microlearning and adaptive tech platforms to cater to individual learning speeds and styles. 
• Connection & Emotional Relevance: Foster an environment where employees see the “why” behind the training—how it benefits them personally and professionally. Make this clear. 
• Scenario-Based Learning: Instead of memorizing regulations, research staff can engage in simulated case studies where they troubleshoot real-world ethical dilemmas or protocol challenges. 
• Interactive Workshops: Hands-on practice with data collection tools, patient communication techniques, or other applications ensures skill mastery rather than theoretical understanding. 
• Mentorship & Continuous Learning: Pairing new employees with experienced mentors fosters on-the-job learning and reinforcement beyond initial training sessions. 

Up Your Compliance Training Game with Personalization 

Although employees may attend workshops, complete modules, or watch presentations, they may still fail to retain knowledge or apply it effectively. A common reason is lack of engagement. Traditional training methods (e.g., slide-heavy lectures or dense manuals) are passive, generic and uninspiring.  

Don’t use a “One-Size-Fits-All Approach” or ignore personalization. We need to apply core educational principles to compliance. Simple as that. 

Making all types of training engaging, interactive and personalized helps: 

• Boost retention 
• Enhance job performance 
• Foster a culture of continuous learning 

Applying education-based strategies can transform compliance training from a mundane task into a powerful tool for professional growth and organizational excellence.  

For ideas on how to up your compliance training game, reach out to the professionals at YouCompli. 

John R. Nocero, Ph.D., and Andrea L. Bordonaro, MAT, blog on LinkedIn as “The Q-Kids,” discussing everything related to clinical research education, inspiration, and professional connection. 

John is the Director of Quality at River Vista in Columbus, Ohio. He has worked in clinical research since 2003 and is inspired by the Irish professional wrestler Becky Lynch, whose personal and professional story centers on achievement, tenacity, grit, and overcoming adversity.  

Andrea has taught first grade in Willoughby, Ohio for 25 years. She earned a Bachelor of Science in elementary education from John Carroll University and a Master’s Degree in the Art of Teaching and Education from Marygrove College. 

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The post Best Practices for Better Training in Healthcare Compliance  first appeared on YouCompli.