By Adam Turteltaub

In January 2017 the Health Care Compliance Association worked with the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services to host a roundtable.  The goal was to provide content for a tool that would enable compliance officers to better assess the effectiveness of their compliance program.

The result of that effort was released later that year.  Since then Measuring Compliance Program Effectiveness:  A Resource Guide has proven an invaluable aid for compliance community.

Laura Ellis, Senior Counsel in the Office of Counsel to the Inspector General at HHS, explain that it is filled with questions designed to assess various parts of compliance programs and how they are functioning.  It is intended for organizations to use internally and is centered around the seven elements of an effective compliance and ethics program.

Importantly, this is not designed to be a tool for enforcement to use as a yardstick.  Instead, it is for compliance professionals to use to make their programs better, whether the organization they work for is large, medium or small.

Not every question in the guide is going to be relevant for every organization.  Nor could any organization possibly assess itself on every measure annually.  Rather, as she explains, it is best to be used selectively and regularly to asses various compliance program elements.

Listen in to learn more about how to put this important document to work for your organization.