The Importance of Healthcare Compliance Training For Employees

Healthcare providers bear significant responsibility for public health. Errors and malpractice can negatively impact people’s lives. Consequently, the healthcare industry is heavily regulated. Regulations aim to standardize care, reduce medical errors, and safeguard patient rights. Regulatory bodies hold healthcare providers accountable for their actions.

Failure to meet industry standards and regulations can significantly damage an organization’s reputation, which is why remaining compliant is vital. However, healthcare regulations are complex and require dedication from the organization’s entire workforce. Employees represent healthcare organizations, and their decisions can affect compliance status. To help employees deliver optimal care and foster trust with patients, companies must invest in healthcare staff training.

What Is Healthcare Compliance Training?

Healthcare compliance training refers to educational programs that teach employees about the laws, regulations, and policies that govern their work, ensuring they comport themselves ethically and legally. Due to the rigorous nature of healthcare regulations, employees can easily make mistakes without sufficient training. Compliance training programs equip employees with the necessary skills to identify, prevent, and remedy instances of noncompliance. Regular training also helps organizations foster a culture where compliance and patient safety are the focal point of all business operations.

Who Should Receive Clinical Compliance Training?

All personnel within a healthcare organization must receive training appropriate to their respective positions. This includes clinical staff, receptionists, accountants, laboratory technicians, HR managers, executives, and more. Some regulations — such as those related to workplace safety and anti-harassment — apply to everyone, while others are more role-specific.

For example, administrative staff must comply with billing and coding regulations, such as the Anti-Kickback Statute or the False Claims Act. Stark law prohibits physicians from referring patients covered by Medicare or Medicaid to someone they have a financial relationship with. Tailoring compliance training plans to each role will ensure employees receive the specific knowledge and skills they require to remain compliant.

The Importance of Compliance Education and Training

Healthcare compliance training for employees is required by law. Every healthcare organization must ensure each of its employees receives the relevant training for their position. Doing so allows the healthcare industry to:

• Enhance patient care: Hospital compliance training provides healthcare employees with industry best practices for patient care. This education leads to consistent, high-quality care across all healthcare organizations and better health outcomes for patients.
• Improve patient safety: Employees who receive compliance training make fewer errors when treating patients. They can also identify and mitigate potential safety risks to ensure a safer working environment.
• Protect patient privacy: Patients share personal information with their providers to receive correct diagnoses and treatment. Compliance training aims to enable employees to keep data private and maintain patient trust in the industry.
• Increase patient trust: Healthcare compliance is a significant consideration for many patients as it can affect care quality. Healthcare training ensures employees maintain a high standard of care and creates a trustworthy and ethical image for the entire industry.
• Prevent fraud: Employee compliance training also exists to decrease fraud, waste, and abuse in the healthcare industry. Fraud negatively impacts everyone by increasing the cost of services and decreasing patient care quality.

Benefits of Compliance Training for Healthcare Organizations

Healthcare organizations that invest in compliance training for all employees realize the following benefits:

• Risk mitigation: Compliance training ensures employees act in accordance with federal, state, and local healthcare regulations. The risks of noncompliance include harm to patients and reduced patient trust in healthcare providers. They may also involve legal consequences such as fines, lawsuits, criminal charges, and loss of license or accreditation.
• Service quality: Employees who follow industry best practices and standards offer higher quality care to patients. Healthcare facilities with high patient care standards typically see increased patient satisfaction and profitability.
• Workplace safety: Complying with safety regulations creates a safer work environment for employees. Safety is a primary concern for healthcare professionals, as working conditions can impact their productivity and ability to provide error-free care to patients.
• Insurance coverage: Insurance providers often require proof of compliance before providing coverage to healthcare organizations. Remaining compliant allows organizations to receive the necessary coverage and reduce the risk of losing it. Coverage is vital in healthcare as medical facilities have higher liability risks, including malpractice, property damage, and injury.
• Reputation management: Noncompliance can result in malpractice, fraud, medical errors, data breaches, and injuries that affect patient trust. By maintaining compliance and a high level of service, organizations can build a trustworthy reputation within their community.
• Hiring top talent: Skilled medical professionals want to work for a company with high ethical standards, a reputable reputation, and safe workplace conditions. Compliance allows organizations to create these favorable conditions and attract top industry talent.
• Compliance status: Regulatory bodies frequently adjust their standards based on changing laws and patient care innovation. Annual compliance training provides organizations with the latest information to retain their compliant status.
• Patient compliance: When patients trust their care provider, they are more likely to share confidential information and comply with treatment plans. Their cooperation — also called patient compliance — results in more successful treatment outcomes and reduces complications.

Types of Healthcare Employee Training Programs

Employees within a healthcare organization must receive training specific to their roles and responsibilities. However, there are standard industry regulations that every employee should know, including:

OSHA Compliance Training

Healthcare employees work tirelessly to improve the health of their community. However, their job comes with multiple safety hazards that can cause injury and harm. To increase safety in the workplace, all healthcare organizations must educate employees on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations.

OSHA is part of the United States Department of Labor (DOL) and aims to create safe and healthy working conditions for American workers. To achieve this mission, OSHA creates workplace safety standards, provides workers with training, and enforces anti-retaliation laws. OSHA healthcare compliance education covers:

• Chemical exposure: Training informs employees about hazardous chemicals in the workplace and permissible exposure limits to minimize health risks. It also highlights the appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) employees must wear when working with or near chemicals.
• Musculoskeletal disorders: Employees learn how to prevent work-related musculoskeletal disorders, which can develop from poor lifting techniques, awkward postures, and repetitive movements.
• Workplace violence: Employers must teach employees how to recognize the signs of potential violence and report incidents. Workplace violence can harm employees, patients, and organizational reputation.
• Infection control: OSHA training programs educate employees about the implementation of infection control practices. These include hand hygiene, PPE, equipment disinfection, and proper disposal of biohazardous waste.

HIPAA Compliance Training

Data privacy has become a critical consideration for all businesses today due to the rise in data breaches. During a data breach, malicious parties aim to steal confidential information in order to commit identity theft or fraud. Healthcare facilities collect sensitive patient information daily, and a data breach can result in untold damage to patient lives. A data breach can also negatively impact the organization’s reputation.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 provides federal standards for the use and disclosure of protected health information (PHI). PHI includes any information within a medical record that can identify the patient. HIPAA compliance training teaches healthcare employees how to safeguard this data. Each new employee must learn about the following:

• Patient rights: HIPAA training educates employees on patient rights regarding privacy and their medical records.
• PHI identification: Employees learn about the various forms of PHI and how to identify them.
• PHI security: The training provides procedures for security updates, guarding against malware, monitoring access to PHI, and password safety. This education minimizes the risk of a data breach.
• Breach notification: Healthcare organizations must ensure every employee knows how to report a HIPAA violation. Creating a culture where reporting is encouraged and providing clear reporting guidelines can reduce damage from a breach.

CLIA Compliance Training

Laboratories that test human specimens for health assessments in the U.S. must comply with the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA)of 1988. The government created this law to address concerns about the quality, reliability, and accuracy of test results. Prior to CLIA certification, there was no uniform standard for laboratory testing. Testing across the country was inconsistent, leading to possibly unreliable test results.

Accuracy is crucial for laboratory testing, as medical professionals use results to diagnose diseases and make treatment decisions. An inaccurate test result has serious consequences, like misdiagnosis or incorrect treatments. The CLIA sets the standard for testing to reduce human errors and protect patient health.

To ensure compliance with testing, organizations must train their staff on CLIA compliance. CLIA courses include information and training on:

• Standard operating procedures (SOPs): During CLIA training, employees learn about the SOPs for every step of the laboratory testing process.
• Quality control: CLIA training teaches employees how to implement and monitor quality control processes. Tight quality control will improve testing accuracy.
• Documentation: Employees must learn about CLIA administrative requirements, including documentation, recordkeeping, and reporting. These tasks prepare organizations for CLIA audits.
• Corrective actions: CLIA education specifies the processes employees must follow when they identify a testing problem.

How to Develop a Healthcare Compliance Training Plan

Healthcare organizations must develop a compliance strategy to combat noncompliance in the workplace. Training forms the foundation of an effective program, as it creates a workforce that understands the importance of compliance. To create a healthcare compliance training program, your organization can:

1. Identify Training Needs

The first step in developing a compliance training program is conducting a compliance needs assessment. These assessments involve evaluating the organization’s current state of compliance against applicable regulations and industry standards. The organization’s compliance history can also uncover areas that require additional training focus. The aim of a compliance assessment is to understand the organization’s strengths, opportunities, and employee training needs. Partnering with a healthcare compliance organization can make this step easier.

2. Define Training Goals

Using insights uncovered in the compliance needs assessment, healthcare organizations can establish clear training goals. These goals will provide a direction for training content creation. When paired with key performance indicators, goals can provide a metric for measuring training effectiveness. They can focus on improving overall regulation knowledge or tackling specific compliance issues like fraud, reporting, or patient safety. By tailoring medical compliance training goals to address needs and areas of opportunities, organizations can further minimize compliance risk.

3. Develop Training Content

With established goals, healthcare organizations can move on to developing a comprehensive compliance curriculum. Content should cover topics relevant to the organization and each employee’s role. In general, clinical compliance training should educate employees on:

• The current state of healthcare compliance
• Federal, state, and local regulations
• Organizational policies and procedures
• PHI use and protection
• Cybersecurity best practices
• Workplace safety guidelines
• Ethical billing and coding practices
• Infection control procedures
• Incident reporting
• Diversity, including, and belonging
• Emergency response protocols

4. Establish Delivery Methods

The next step is to choose how to admister training to staff members. How they learn the content can impact understanding and retention, and each employee may have a different learning style. Discovering which methods work for each team is key to ensuring training effectiveness. One strategy is to employ various training methods, including:

• Workshops: Employees will learn concepts through an interactive training method, such as a series of activities in person within a group setting. Participants can ask questions and get direct feedback while they learn.
• Online courses: Online healthcare compliance training means employees can access course content at any time or place. E-learning courses deliver training through a mix of articles, videos, and tests.
• Simulations: By using technology, software, and virtual reality to simulate training scenarios, employees can learn and make mistakes in a low-stakes environment.
• Hands-on training: Employees learn compliance procedures while on the job with hands-on training. It is a form of experiential training in which employees actively learn and apply their knowledge to the task at hand.
• Coaching: Coaching is a personal approach to training where an experienced professional provides one-on-one guidance to an employee. The coaching typically takes place in the work environment.
• Lecturers: A presenter might teach content to a large group of employees while they listen and take notes.

5. Measure Training Effectiveness

Understanding how well employees retain knowledge post-training is essential to evaluating the effectiveness of training material. By identifying methods that produce unsatisfactory results, the organization can improve and evolve training over time.

Healthcare organizations can use assessments and quizzes at the end of training sessions to measure the effectiveness of training. Collecting feedback directly from participants can highlight areas that need improvement. The organization can also track goal progress, KPIs and compliance-related metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of its overall compliance strategy.

Achieve Compliance Peace of Mind With DoctorsManagement, LLC

Running a medical practice and staying current with compliance regulations can be challenging. However, remaining compliant is vital to business success. At DoctorsManagement, LLC, we offer practice compliance solutions to support you through the complexities of the regulatory landscape. Our comprehensive compliance services include compliance auditing, risk assessment, and staff training.

When you partner with our compliance specialists, you’ll receive a customized compliance plan that addresses your organization’s unique needs. Our compliance planning focuses on healthcare regulations like OSHA, CLIA, HIPAA, anti-kickback laws, fee splitting, and more. Our consultants will proactively help you maintain compliance with day-to-day guidance and regular auditing. It’s our mission to leave you with a sustainable compliance system that will keep your business compliant for years to come.

Please call us at 865-800-3606 to begin your compliance journey today. Alternatively, you can submit a contact form online to request a free consultation with our team.

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