The Benefits of Outsourced Healthcare Compliance
Outsourced healthcare compliance is when external experts or agencies take responsibility for some of an organization’s compliance obligations – either working inhouse as a separate compliance unit, working inhouse as a consultant to a compliance team, or working remotely via healthcare compliance software. They can also work as outsourced compliance experts for one particular regulation (i.e., HIPAA), or one element of multiple regulations (i.e., workforce training).
Outsourced healthcare compliance services can perform a wide range of compliance tasks, including risk assessments, policy development, training programs, audits, and ongoing compliance monitoring. By outsourcing these tasks, healthcare organizations can leverage specialized knowledge and experience not readily available in-house or lacking the resources to keep up to date with changes to federal, state, and industry regulations.
The Benefits of Outsourcing Healthcare Compliance
Outsourcing healthcare compliance has the primary benefit of enabling organizations to concentrate on core healthcare operations while entrusting some or all of their compliance obligations to experts. Some of the other benefits of outsourcing healthcare compliance include:
Access to Specialized Knowledge
It is difficult for small compliance teams to keep up to date with every federal, state, and industry healthcare compliance requirement. Outsourced healthcare compliance provides access to experienced compliance professionals who are not only up to date with current compliance requirements, but who are also aware of changes under consideration.
Enhanced Efficiency
Due to having specialized knowledge of all applicable compliance regulations, outsourced healthcare compliance services can enhance efficiency by eliminating duplicated requirements – for example, HIPAA, OSHA, and CMS’ conditions for participation in Medicare all include similar emergency preparedness requirements.
Risk Reduction
Having specialized knowledge can also help organizations reduce the risk of non-compliance in cases where (for example) a provision of state law preempts a provision of HIPAA or additional training requirements exist due to the nature of an organization’s operations. Reducing the risks of non-compliance reduces the likelihood of penalties for non-compliance.
Better Trained Workforce
Due to their experience with different types of healthcare organizations, outsourced healthcare compliance services are often more familiar with how workforces absorb and apply training. This means training sessions can be better compiled and delivered by an external source to increase the likelihood of a better trained and compliant workforce.
Cost Savings
Outsourcing healthcare compliance can lead to cost savings by avoiding the requirement to hire an employee with the necessary compliance experience (i.e., a HIPAA Privacy Official). By comparison, outsourcing healthcare compliance allows organizations to pay for external compliance services on an as-needed basis.
Outsourced Healthcare Compliance can be Long Term or Short Term
A further benefit of outsourcing healthcare compliance is external contractors can be engaged for as long as required, or for as long as they are producing quantifiable results. If, for example, an organization only requires help to get a security awareness training program up and running, the external expert or agency can be engaged on a “per-job” basis.
It may also be possible to engage an external expert or agency on a rolling contract basis. In this scenario, the response to a HIPAA security incident may be initially outsourced. Then, as the causes of the HIPAA security incident are identified and measures are implemented to prevent the incident from occurring again, the contract is renewed on a rolling basis.
How to Evaluate External Compliance Services
Selecting an external compliance service requires careful consideration of several key factors. It is important that, if a service provider is offering a technology solution, that the technology solution is customizable to meet all the organization’s compliance obligations. It is also important the provider offers technical and administrative support to deploy and configure the solution.
Other tips include ensuring the provider can demonstrate expertise in healthcare compliance, and an understanding of industry regulations and best practices. It may also be necessary to research the provider’s reputation via a reputable source to assess their previous successes and failures – particularly with regards to integrating their technology solution into an existing IT infrastructure.
Finally, it is vital that prospective outsourced healthcare compliance experts provide reasonable expectations of what their services might entail. These expectations should include loss of organization control and the potential for a lengthy transition period – during which time there may be operational disruptions. In all cases, before engaging an outsourced healthcare compliance service, it is best to seek independent compliance advice.
