In Rebooting Compliance Program, CO and PO Write Interactive Code, Build Partnerships

When the compliance program began 20 years ago at MultiCare, a health system in Washington state, Samantha Karpenko, who worked in revenue cycle there at the time, said it was perceived as “red tape.” There was that sense of compliance as “intimidating,” with more of a police aura.

“The team wasn’t very approachable and didn’t have much of an identity,” according to Karpenko, who joined the compliance department in 2011 and ultimately became director of corporate compliance. Over the years the compliance program evolved and improved, culminating last year in a reboot under the direction of Karpenko and Monica Freedle, the director of privacy and civil rights. The difference between then and now is an object lesson in how far compliance has come and how important it is not to leave it in the past, especially with the Department of Justice expecting organizations to do far more than check the boxes.

“It was a 20-year-old program that really needed to be updated and made more relevant to current times,” said Karpenko, who recently left MultiCare to become senior compliance manager at 98point6, a telehealth app.

Karpenko and Freedle described the metamorphosis of the compliance program April 21 at the Health Care Compliance Association’s Compliance Institute.[1]

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