Compliance:
In Heightened Compliance Environment, Examine Reporting Hierarchy
Published on Tue May 18, 2010
How your compliance officer reports to the Board could doom you. How often does your compliance officer report to your board of directors? A) All the time; I love those guys. B) A few times a year. C) When something goes wrong. D) Who? If your answer is C or D, you are not alone, according to a recent survey by the Health Care Compliance Association, but that will be cold comfort should your home care organization become the target of an investigation. "[B]oards and even CEOs have less contact with [chief ethics and compliance officers] than recent legislation would suggest is necessary," notes the HCCA. The U.S. Sentencing Commission recently proposed amendments to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines that allow mitigating points to lessen fines if there is a direct reporting relationship. Only 55 percent of the 481 respondents in the HCCA survey said that in their company the compliance [...]