Home Health & Hospice Week

1. Review (with legal counsel if necessary) the new VSD policy and Deputy Attorney General’s memo to gain a thorough understanding of expectations.

2. Evaluate your compliance policies and programs to ensure they are effective and well-designed to be able to quickly identify wrongdoing, and they include all risk mitigation procedures possible.

3. Determine if systems are actually in place and functioning properly to identify misconduct before regulatory agencies do.

4. Ensure, if misconduct is discovered, that processes are in place to:

• determine the extent of the misconduct,
• fulfil remediation requirements, and
• assess potential benefits and risks of voluntarily self-disclose.

5. If prior organization misconduct exists, assess additional disclosure risks.

Polsinelli Law recommends, “Where an organization has prior enforcement actions, particularly within the last ten years, the company should ensure that sufficient efforts have been taken to resolve the ‘root cause’ of the prior misconduct, particularly within the structure of any prior enforcement actions or non-prosecution or deferred prosecution agreements.”

They emphasize that the Department considers repeated misconduct to indicate that the entity operates without an appropriate compliance culture or institutional safeguards.

6. Review bylaws, articles and compensation policies to determine levels of existing authority and that the flexibility exists to take full advantage of opportunities for cooperation.

Remember: Self-disclosure gives you the chance to avoid the disruptions and costs of a government-led investi­gation and civil or administrative litigation. But, you must be sure your house is in order so you are ready to disclose misconduct if discovered.