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Continue readingTimes change and compliance, like all businesses and business operations, needs processes that keep up. However, there are a lot of challenges that we as compliance professionals face when it comes to modernizing our practice. Modernizing compliance means adapting or incorporating requirements, adherence methods and technology to align with current times or requirements.
For example, this could mean learning to effectively audit electronic, instead of paper, health records. Many compliance professionals have also had to adapt to working with a remote workforce, such as billing and coding professionals, as formerly onsite staff have been transitioned out, in favor of a contracted workforce for a third-party company.
With these, and many other, challenges in mind, how do we proactively modernize compliance?
One way is to ensure compliance is part of the organization’s enterprise risk management (ERM) plan and business strategy. It is commonly, but incorrectly, believed that an ERM plan only involves the risk management department. An effective and comprehensive ERM plan has to include human capital, operational, financial and strategic domains, as well as addressing legal, regulatory and compliance related domains and issues.
For example, HIPAA or cyber breaches involving PII or PHI can have significant risk to the organization, including reputational, regulatory and financial consequences. Evaluating these compliance-related risks should be part of the ERM planning process, as should the development of strategies in the ERM to mitigate or manage these risks.
Another way to modernize compliance is to ensure compliance and education plans are informative, yet easy to understand and follow. Gone are the days where the compliance plan can be over 30 pages long and written in a dense format with little white space. Let’s be honest: other than people in the compliance department, most employees won’t read a 30-page regulatory document which consists of nothing but text.
The compliance plan should be developed and laid out in an easy to read format. Graphs and other graphical elements should be included to aid in engagement and learning. And, when including the regulatory language, also include a clear, concrete example of how that applies to the employee.
For example, we all know that HIPAA requires staff to maintain patient privacy. While at work, this includes conversations — so we should not be discussing patients or patient information with co-workers in the elevator or bathroom. Similarly, if a person calls asking about a patient, staff must check the registration or admission system to ensure the patient wants their admission shared with callers or visitors.
If you really want your employees to follow the compliance plan, then craft it with that as your intent. Get two to three volunteers from other departments to review and edit the document with you so you ensure you met your goal to educate employees and modernize the compliance plan.
Education plans need to be developed that align with the compliance plan, but also must be informative and fresh. Employees are no longer interested in sitting down for a half-day session of watching PowerPoint presentations. Select annual mandatory compliance education modules that are engaging and can be completed in 10-15 minutes at one time. Ensure the format is varied with some reading, videos and multiple-choice options which enhance learning. Try incorporating in-person education throughout the year so that your co-workers are updated on any compliance policy updates or regulatory changes. But keep the education to around 10 minutes at a time in an easy to understand and engaging format, so employees see compliance as a resource instead of a department that only delivers bad news or wastes their time.
To modernize compliance, it is also important to create agile and contemporary data analytics processes. We can’t track all healthcare related regulations on paper or spreadsheets anymore. There are simply too many requirements to follow and too many changes to track.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a perfect recent example. Governors from many states were executing executive orders (EO) on a frequent basis to address COVID-19 related matters. These executive orders addressed such topics as whether elective surgery could or could not be performed, what restrictions were lifted with regards to telehealth visits, and what professional licensing requirements were relaxed. For organizations who have facilities in multiple states, tracking EO alone would be an incredible burden in a paper- or spreadsheet-driven department.
And, regardless of EO, there can be compliance issues related to telehealth visits and the ability to bill for those visits. For example, if a provider tries to deliver an annual Medicare visit via telehealth from California for a new patient in Connecticut.
It probably goes without saying, but modernizing compliance fundamentally includes incorporating the use of current technology and automation tools to assist with regulatory compliance and education. There are a number of electronic learning systems which automate compliance education assignment and monitoring. These systems allow compliance professionals to assign required annual training, as well as remedial education, by employee type (nurse, doctor, coder, food service, volunteer, therapist, information technologist, etc.).
There are also a variety of internet-based due diligence platforms to ensure potential vendors and contractors are appropriately vetted before the organization does business with them. And, there are many systems available that track regulatory changes and regulatory activity within your organization. There’s no longer a good reason to not explore the options, and see which tools are a good fit for your department and organization.
Denise Atwood, RN, JD, CPHRM
District Medical Group (DMG), Inc., Chief Risk Officer and owner of Denise Atwood, PLLC
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article or blog are the author’s and do not represent the opinions of DMG.
Denise Atwood, RN, JD, CPHRM has over 30 years of healthcare experience in compliance, risk management, quality, and clinical areas. She is also a published author and educator on risk, compliance, medical-legal and ethics issues. She is currently the Chief Risk Officer and Associate General Counsel at a nonprofit, multispecialty provider group in Phoenix, Arizona and Vice President of the company’s self-insurance captive.
When workers get fatigued, what is the impact on compliance?
We all know that, during a normal workday, workers can get fatigued. Fatigue can come from a variety of sources, including personal and professional challenges or stressors. Mental fatigue specifically occurs when there is a need to process overwhelming amounts of new data or information.
The impact and stressors of working during a pandemic can make this worse. Mental fatigue is exacerbated because there is so much new information to cull through on a daily (sometimes more frequent) basis. Combine this information overload with rapidly changing pandemic recommendations and guidelines, and it’s no wonder that workers are becoming more fatigued.
Memory and performance both decline when a person is mentally fatigued, which can lead to non-compliant behaviors and actions. This happens because fatigue decreases the ability to make new, short-term memories. Lack of short-term memories prevents the formation of long-term memory knowledge. And a person simply cannot recall information which has not been transferred to long-term memory. In this way, fatigue decreases the ability to recall information – whether recently learned or already known.
For example, if the organization has not previously billed for telehealth visits, a fatigued coder may not remember the education that was provided regarding telehealth documentation requirements or the codes applied to these visits. Moreover, the coder may have difficulty recalling in-person visit codes or coding modifiers. When these effects of fatigue happen, coding compliance will decrease.
Mental and physical fatigue can affect worker performance in other ways. Think about the last time you did not get a good night’s sleep. At work the next day, all you can think about is drinking more coffee or taking a nap or going to bed early that night.
Signs of this kind of fatigue include decreased awareness or a general decrease in interest with respect to work or job tasks. Other signs of fatigue include changes in judgment or decision-making. Take, for example, an employee who is usually very engaged on the job, but unexpectedly shows up late for a scheduled meeting. During the meeting, the employee is unusually quiet and provides limited feedback. If that employee’s knowledge and feedback are necessary to make a critical compliance-related decision there would be not only a negative effect on compliance, but potentially a negative effect on the entire organization.
There is also a form of specific compliance fatigue – where people are overwhelmed and wearied by the numerous adherence requirements in healthcare policies and procedures and rules and regulations. This combines with mental fatigue, which inhibits the ability to remember and follow these policies and procedures, which is the cornerstone of good compliance.
Employees may know and understand policies and procedures addressing HIPAA. For example, they must use encryption when emailing protected health information (PHI) or personally identifiable information (PII) or payment card information (PCI). Similarly, in the course of their work, they must exercise heightened caution before clicking on links embedded in emails. If they are experiencing fatigue, the possibility of compliance failures increases.
As physical, mental and compliance fatigue increase the potential for job related mistakes, they conversely decrease worker compliance. The overall impact of worker fatigue can have very real and negative impact on compliance ranging from simple mistakes or lapses in judgment to catastrophic errors related to breach of PHI/PII or PCI.
Encourage supervisors to regularly meet with their staff to evaluate the level of information fatigue or physical fatigue. If possible, conduct education and feedback sessions to help the team talk through fatigue challenges.
Utilize resources, such as youCompli, to assist the team in staying current with healthcare compliance related changes to guidelines, regulations and laws, and managing compliance-related workflows automatically.
Denise Atwood, RN, JD, CPHRM
District Medical Group (DMG), Inc., Chief Risk Officer and owner of Denise Atwood, PLLC
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article or blog are the author’s and do not represent the opinions of DMG.
Denise Atwood, RN, JD, CPHRM has over 30 years of healthcare experience in compliance, risk management, quality, and clinical areas. She is also a published author and educator on risk, compliance, medical-legal and ethics issues. She is currently the Chief Risk Officer and Associate General Counsel at a nonprofit, multispecialty provider group in Phoenix, Arizona and Vice President of the company’s self-insurance captive.