It’s challenging enough to stay on top of constantly changing compliance regulations in healthcare, including training. More specifically, there’s the need to ensure timely training across all locations, track employee training progress, and find a secure way to store and access assessment scores. Instead of continuously working hard to maintain all these administrative and logistical functions, you can be more innovative by letting compliance training software do the heavy lifting.
Importance of OIG Compliance Training
The U.S. Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) oversees regulations covering federal programs offering benefits to healthcare organizations. OIG compliance training is crucial to ensure that providers and other employees understand and implement the laws designed to prevent fraud, breaches of patient privacy, and other behaviors that undermine the federal programs that patients depend on.
The Value of Compliance Training Software
Meeting OIG compliance training requirements involves more than providing employees access to the right training classes and materials. For instance, you must ensure all personnel renew their training on time. You also need to track employees’ progress with their training, record and access their scores, and know who to report those scores to.
All these tasks can seem daunting to even the most organized compliance officers. It’s okay to have support in completing all of this administrative work. Therefore, consider adopting healthcare compliance training software from providers like Compliancy Group to reduce many hassles. Training software can help you track each employee’s progress and perform many other functions. When searching for a provider of compliance software, be sure that any package or service you sign up for can help your organization with the following regulatory elements.
HIPAA, OSHA, and SOC 2
Providers and other personnel who interact with patients or handle personal health information (PHI) must comply with the following sets of regulations:
- HIPAA: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
- OSHA: Occupational Safety and Health Administration
- SOC 2: Systems and Organization Controls 2
HIPAA mandates how healthcare organizations handle, disclose, and protect PHI, and it has stipulations for responding to privacy breaches and unauthorized access to PHI. To preserve the workplace safety and well-being of healthcare employees, your organization also needs training to meet the requirements of OSHA. Another necessary component of compliance training is SOC 2 readiness, which involves protecting the integrity of sensitive information stored digitally.
Your compliance software should go above and beyond providing the training content for these three sets of regulations. Because most employees don’t look forward to these training modules, consider asking your prospective provider about the OIG compliance training videos they offer. For example, how do they make the training engaging and memorable?
Administrative Features
Besides assessing comprehension and mastery, compliance training software should assist compliance officers and other leaders in several logistical aspects of compliance management. No matter the size of your workforce, keeping track of all employees’ training progress, scores, and renewals is a significant undertaking. Therefore, compliance training software can streamline the following tasks:
- Monitoring fulfillment of training requirements of staff in all locations
- Reminding staff when they must complete their training
- Providing reminders for training renewals and notifying administrators
- Enabling trainees to attest they understand and have read the required training material
- Keeping records of assessment scores and successful training completions
Compliance Officer Training
A designated compliance officer helps a healthcare organization follow relevant protocols, stay compliant with regulations, report misconduct and security breaches, and carry out corrective actions in the wake of non-compliance incidents. A quality compliance software provider should offer comprehensive and accredited training specific to compliance officers and provide a certificate of completion.
In keeping with increased oversight of and exclusions of non-compliant healthcare organizations, the OIG Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT) has released links to OIG compliance training videos tailored for healthcare providers. The best compliance software providers can direct you to this OIG HEAT provider compliance training, which covers organizational compliance programs, laws relevant to fraud and abuse, and how to respond to incidents of non-compliance. Find out if a prospective compliance software package can help HEAT officers keep track of training requirements, deadlines, and reporting protocols.
Given the complexities of healthcare compliance training, software from Compliancy Group can handle the administrative and logistical issues so that you can focus on making sure compliance officers and other staff receive the OIG compliance training they need. Contact us today to learn more about our software packages and other tools that can help you meet your regulatory needs.
