Compliance Program Certification
Recently, Health Ethics Trust announced an important advancement in compliance program assessment and certification. Over the past decade HET has assessed the compliance plans of hundreds of healthcare entities including hospitals, health systems, health plans, and vendors. These assessments are built upon recognized standards and best practices identified at the annual Healthcare Best Compliance Practices Forum. The Forum itself has gathered information on healthcare compliance practices since 1995. The Trust also employs an empirically validated, highly reliable survey instrument with a record of accuracy for more than 20 years.
HET President Mark Pastin stated that, “Despite these efforts, we continue to see a wide variety of methodologies employed in the name of assessing compliance program effectiveness. Some of the firms conducting these assessments seem to be conflicted. They find that what your compliance program needs to be effective is, per coincidence, just what they happen to provide. The cost of a compliance program assessments is often prohibitive.”
To address these concerns HET formed an independent body, the Commission on Compliance Program Effectiveness (CCPE), charged with conducting compliance assessments according to recognized standards and offering a responsible certification of compliance program effectiveness – the CCPE Certification. The Commission is run by working compliance professionals and academicians who agree not to provide services to assessment clients of the Commission for a minimum period of three years after completion of a certification assessment. Commission Assessors are compliance professionals who have completed HET's Compliance Program Assessors Course.
The Commission is committed to making compliance program assessment a publicly accessible process with periodic open comment periods on standards and methodologies. The goal is to make compliance program assessment contributory to other activities related to other recognized quality certifications such as those overseen by JCAHO, NCQA, and URAC as well as the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards.
If you are interested in more information about the Commission, the Compliance Program Certification process or would like to become an Assessor, call our office at 703.683.7916.
