Employee Compliance Training for Healthcare

Sarah Jones

Employee compliance training is essential to any healthcare organization’s onboarding process. It educates employees on the laws, regulations, and policies governing their work and ensures they understand their responsibilities and obligations as healthcare professionals.

This blog post will explore why compliance training is vital for an industry where mistakes or non-compliance can seriously affect patients, staff, and the organization. We’ll also discuss what training topics should be covered and how to design an effective compliance training program using digital software.

The Fundamentals of Employee Compliance Training

Healthcare is a continuously evolving industry where regulatory organizations consistently scrutinize compliance standards. Healthcare professionals should frequently learn, re-train, and refresh their knowledge of new concepts and best practices. There are three key fundamentals of team member compliance training:

  1. It Helps Reduce Risk
  2. It Ensures Patient Safety
  3. It Fosters a Culture of Compliance

Employee Compliance Training Topics

Compliance training covers a wide range of topics, including patient privacy, medical billing and coding, workplace safety, and infection control, among others. Successful training is when team members understand and comply with various laws, regulations, and policies that govern the healthcare industry. Specific topic areas include:

  • HIPAA: The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is a federal law that governs the privacy and security of patient health information. Compliance training should cover the key provisions of HIPAA, including the Privacy Rule, Security Rule, and Breach Notification Rule.
  • OSHA: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is a federal agency that sets and enforces safety standards in the workplace. Compliance training should cover the key regulations, including those related to bloodborne pathogens, hazardous chemicals, and workplace violence.
  • Fraud, Waste, and Abuse: Training should cover the key provisions of the False Claims Act and other laws that prohibit healthcare fraud, waste, and abuse. Employees should understand the consequences of non-compliance – fines, imprisonment, and exclusion from government programs.
  • Code of Conduct: Every healthcare organization should reinforce the values, mission, and standard of behavior that define how service is delivered.

Effective Compliance Training Program Design

Designing an effective compliance training program requires careful planning and execution. Here are some tips to help you get started:

  • Identify Your Training Objectives: What do you want employees to learn? What outcomes do you hope to achieve? Your objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).
  • Develop Training Materials: With objectives in hand, create engaging, interactive, and diverse courses that appeal to different learning styles. Internal and external subject matter experts are valuable resources for outlining and populating content.
  • Deliver The Training: Online compliance training makes it convenient for busy healthcare professionals to complete their required courses. This ongoing education can help healthcare professionals stay current on laws, guidelines, and facility policies and procedures. Channels can also include in-person training sessions, quizzes, case studies, and group activities.
  • Evaluate Your Training Programs: Employee feedback is a powerful tool to help make improvements and focus training where it’s most needed.

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Use this worksheet to design an effective compliance training program.

Leverage Online Resources for Employee Compliance Training 

It’s hard for employers to stay on top of required healthcare compliance training and changing regulations. MedTrainer Learning supports training for hospitals, clinics, urgent care, home health, long-term care, physician offices, and more. Our library contains nearly 1,000 courses that satisfy requirements for HIPAA, HRSA, OSHA, and accredited organizations.

MedTrainer’s policy experts continually update courses created specifically for organizations like yours. Our modern learning management system offers automated reminders, one-click course assignments, and customizable reporting to ensure both regulatory and accreditation compliance. By relying on healthcare compliance training and education through MedTrainer, employers can ensure the safety of their employees while avoiding costly fines and penalties — it’s that simple.

Talk to a MedTrainer expert for more information about MedTrainer Learning.