In early November, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) posted its General Compliance Program Guidance, marking the first update to the guidance since 2008.
The update released by the OIG heralds a significant alteration in aligning compliance efforts for corporations in tune with the evolving landscape of health care requirements regarding legal, regulatory, and administrative horizon. As top-class legal professionals, it is indispensable to understand the critical elements of this comprehensive program and how it influences the health care sector.
According to a recent update by Saul Ewing LLP, this new release of the OIG’s General Compliance Program Guidance modernizes previous guidelines, offering contemporary insights into risk assessments, prompt responses to detected problems and development of policies to avoid similar issues in the future. Furthermore, it addresses how best to foster an organizational culture that encourages and ensures adherence to statutory and regulatory compliances.
This updated document will serve as a comprehensive guide for health care providers to comprehend and engage effectively in complying with various legal obligations, thereby helping to mitigate potential risks on multiple fronts. It’s a noteworthy resource for risk management professionals responsible for overseeing health care corporations’ compliance programs.
Understandably, comprehensive conformance with the new OIG guidelines may require law firms to re-evaluate their current practices and system controls, culminating in potential reforms that will ensure a robust and consistent compliance infrastructure within the framework of the updated Guidance. Therefore, law firms and in-company legal teams need to quickly adapt to these changes while also staying abreast of any future modifications.
While the new guidance provides broad strokes for compliance, it emphasizes that no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution exists, highlighting the need for a customized approach depending on the size, operational complexity, and risk areas of each organization. As such, it underpins the importance of having a strong internal regulatory team in place to navigate the complex and highly dynamic regulatory environment.