Tag Archives: Compliance Attorney

Certified Compliance Attorney Health Care Compliance Certification

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Certified Compliance Attorney – CHC Compliance Lawyer

Expert Compliance Representation – Health Care Compliance

Attorney John H. Fisher leads the Health Care Compliance Practice at Ruder Ware.   John is a practicing health care attorney who has substantial expertise in the compliance area.  He is certified in both Health Care Compliance and Corporate Compliance and Ethics.

Aggressive Governmental Fraud and Abuse Investigations

Government enforcement practices and ever changing regulatory requirements require health care providers of all types and specialties to function in a highly complex environment.  Government enforcement operates under a “return on investment” mentality which leads to extremely aggressive and sometimes unfairly overbroad enforcement actions.  This leaves even the most well intentioned health care provider feeling targeted and overburdened with regulatory requirements.

Attorney Fisher Provides a Full Range of Compliance Services

Attorney Fisher has provided a broad range of compliance related legal services to a variety of health care providers including hospitals, mental health programs, skilled nursing facilities, ambulatory surgery centers, a variety of medical groups, diagnostic facilities, home health care providers, personal care agencies, clinically integrated provider groups, accountable care organizations.  Each provider has unique features and characteristics that require creative approaches to mitigate the impact of overzealous governmental enforcement and private whistleblowers.

Preparation for an Eventual External Examination of Your Compliance Process

Our compliance practice functions under the philosophy that all providers will eventually be called upon to defend their compliance programs.  This may come through a self-disclosure after an infraction that is discovered through self assessment or audit.  A challenge to the effectiveness of a compliance program can arise as a result of a whistleblower claim or at the hands of a government criminal or civil prosecutor.  Regardless of the source of challenge, at some point in the future, a compliance program will be put to the test.  When this happens, it must be effective to detect and correct potential compliance problems.  This requires a well designed plan as well as a showing that the plan is actively operating to identify risk areas, audit for anomalies in areas where risk may be present, and comes full circle to take appropriate action to correct potential problems that are identified.  If this is happening when your time comes; when your compliance program is put to the test, you will have gone a long ways toward mitigation of potential negative consequences.

Penalties Are Increasing and the Scope Activity Considered Abusive Continues to Expand

Some may wonder how the government plans to pay for changes in the health care system.  One of the primary sources of payment in the future will be through enforcement of actual or perceived fraud and abuse.  Currently, the Federal government received an 800% return on every dollar that it invests on pursuing health care fraud and abuse.  With increased penalties and more draconian enforcement systems in place, the government is poised to turn the enforcement business into an even more lucrative proposition.  The stage is set with laws that increase penalties to such an astronomical level that even a minor case will be settled rather than risk being dragged through a proceeding that could expose a provider to damage that are many times the amount of settlement.

The Danger of Whistleblower Claimants

Whistleblowers also are incentivized to file cases as they seek to benefit personally from provider activity that may not fully conform to regulatory expectations. No provider is immune, no matter how effective its corporate responsibility program. For these reasons, all providers need experienced Compliance Counsel to assist them in trying to prevent regulatory violations, to determine the scope of and assist with correcting identified compliance issues and to defend them in the event they do become a target of government investigative activities.

Whistleblowers can come from a number of different places.  Disgruntled employees are a prime candidate to bring a whistleblower complaint.  How these complaints are handled is extremely important to minimizing their potential negative impact on you operations.  Once a Whistleblower attorney becomes financially committed to a case, they tend not to let go easily.  Settlement can be very difficult to attain on reasonable terms.  It is fair to say that in many cases the government gives more latitude to settle cases if the provider cooperates.

There are some reasonable government enforcement individuals who appropriately utilize their discretion when a provider cooperates and has not intentionally bilked the system.  Whistleblowers on the other hand, have their sites set on the full maximum amount of calculated False Claims Act damages.  They are looking for a pay day.  We can help you avoid this type of situation altogether by helping establish an effective compliance program that takes appropriate action to mitigate exposure if infractions are discovered.

Compliance Legal Practice and Effectiveness Review

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Compliance Program Development and Effectiveness Review

A significant part of our health law practice involves the creation, implementation, and review of compliance programs for health care providers and other businesses.  Some of our compliance practice is devoted to institutional provides such as hospitals, health systems and nursing homes.  We are increasingly advising our smaller health care clients, such as physician groups, home health agencies and other providers on establishing appropriate compliance programs.  The entire industry is trending toward the adoption of compliance programs spurred on by a true desire to reduce risk as well as recent legal changes that mandate the adoption of compliance programs for most health care providers.

We have made a major firm committment to our compliance practice.  Health care attorney John Fisher recently obtained national certification in health care compliance through the Health Care Compliance Association.  We have assembled a team attorneys with various legal backgrounds, including health law, employment law, non-profit tax law and other areas to complement Mr. Fisher’s focus on compliance issues faced by health care providers.

We provide compliance program development and review services to hospitals, individual physicians and group practices, dental groups, chiropractic groups, home health agencies, skilled nursing facilities, durable medical equipment suppliers, ambulance providers, therapy clinics, ambulatory surgery centers, and behavioral health care providers.  We assist providers in conducting internal audits, internal investigations, compliance program gap analysis and effectiveness reviews. We have also assisted providers who are the subject of reviews by institutions where they may be employed or have staff privileges.

Examples of some of our compliance program related involvement in the health care area include:

  • Conducting effectiveness reviews and making suggestions for enhancements to existing compliance programs.
  • Working with governing bodies to develop initial compliance programs.
  • Advising compliance officers and governance with respect to ongoing monitoring and auditing.
  • Assisting providers to conduct internal audits and assessments.
  • Assisting providers to focus on specific risk areas that may affect their practices.
  • Assisting providers in the reacting to compliance reports including investigations and corrective action plan development.
  • Conducting detailed compliance related research in the course of acquisitions of other providers.
  • Creating programs that leverage existing resources and expertise into an enterprise management system addressed at compliance issues.
  • Compliance Programs Are An Essential Element of Health Care Operations

Effective compliance programs have become an essential element of an effective regulatory risk reduction program.  The importance of compliance programs have been repeatedly emphasised by government officials over the past decade.  Recently, Marilyn Tavenner, Acting Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a brief article on the CMS Blog emphasizing the use of “predictive modeling” technologies to identify specific providers that warrant further investigation.  The Acting Administrator touts that predictive modeling has already identified 2,500 leads for further investigation, 600 preliminary law enforcement cases, and 400 direct interviews with providers that have taken place due to the use of predictive modeling.

The 2012 Office of Inspector General Annual Work Plan also referred to new methods and programs to detect potential billing anomolies.  The OIG states that it will be using data matching programs to identify not only providers who are at a high risk of having incorrect billings, but also providers who have low risk.  The OIG claims that it will be examining both types of providers to determine the impact that compliance program operations have on the accuracy of billings.  This is alarming because it means that the OIG will be eamining the operations of compliance programs who show low risk of billing anomolies.

The Coming of Mandatory Compliance Programs

The PPACA created the concept of mandatory compliance programs for most providers.  Nursing homes are first on the list and must certify that they have an effective compliance program by 2013.  We are expecting additional regulations on what constitutes and effecive compliance progam as well as specific timelines defining when other provider types will be required to adopt compliance programs as a condition of participation in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Compliance Programs – One Size Does Not Fit All

The OIG Guidance on Compliance Programs as well as the Federal Sentencing Guidelines make it clear that one size does not fit all when it comes to compliance program development.  An effective compliance program needs to be strategically developed based on identification of the risk factors that are specific to the size and nature of the organization.  It is not prudent to simply copy the policies of another organization and adopt them as your own.  You should create a structure as well as topical policies that reflect the nature of your particular organization; sometimes right down to the personalities that are involved in the various aspects of your operations.

There are certain core principals that will be common to all compliance programs.  However, your program should be appropriately scaled to the size and resources of your organization.  I am not suggesting that you fail to allocate sufficient resources to compliance.  Decisions regarding allocation of resources are difficult but must be addressed.  At the same time, you do not want to develop policies that you will never have the resources to appropriately follow.  This carries the risk of creating a “Roadmap” that demonstrators to investigators the things that you are NOT doing.  Policies that you do not follows are argueably worse than having no policies at all; at least in some areas.