John Falcetano (john.falcetano@brooksrehab.org) is Director Corporate Compliance at Brooks Health System in Jacksonville, FL.

A critical element of any effective compliance program is monitoring. As a service to our members, each month this column focuses on potential monitors for specific business lines.

As we have recently seen, pandemics can affect the way clinicians have to treat their patients. In an effort to reduce exposing vulnerable populations to COVID-19, physicians turned to technology and started using telehealth to remotely treat their patients more often, thereby reducing the chance of contracting the deadly virus. The pandemic also caused compliance professionals to rethink how they were monitoring for compliance. Many compliance professionals found themselves working remotely along with other staff to carry out their compliance functions. Compliance professionals had to evaluate compliance processes, such as monitoring activities, and find new ways to complete tasks.