Catherine Boerner (cboerner@boernerconsultingllc.com) is President of Boerner Consulting, LLC in New Berlin, WI.
Sometimes I get the questions: How is the Compliance department different from risk management? How should they work together? Should they work together?
I have had discussions about how the compliance officer is focusing more on internal risks to the organization. Compliance is looking at if we are doing something correctly. Are we documenting, coding, and billing correctly? Are we ethical? Is the organization engaging in behavior that could be considered internal fraud, waste, or abuse? Are we paying back overpayments that are discovered? It really is about internal processes and controls in place to mitigate risk.