Betsy Wade (bwade@signaturehealthcarellc.com) is the Chief Compliance and Ethics Officer at Signature Healthcare in Louisville, KY.
For nearly 25 years, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) have been advising healthcare provider governing bodies on their oversight responsibilities for their compliance programs.
The guidance is published on the OIG’s “Compliance Resources for Health Care Boards” website,[1] in the OIG’s “Toolkit for Health Care Boards,”[2] and in the OIG[3] and DOJ[4] compliance program effectiveness resource documents. Board oversight of compliance also was included in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which state the company’s “governing authority shall be knowledgeable about the content and operation of the compliance and ethics program and shall exercise reasonable oversight” of it (emphasis added).[5]