It’s not news that compliance issues are among the biggest worries a pharmacy owner faces today.

With the scheduling of more and more government auditing, it is even more important to be organized and compliant with Fraud, Waste and Abuse, HIPAA, Quality Assurance, and Pseudoephedrine regulations. You must document your monthly check of the exclusion lists and keep all of your licenses and certifications up-to-date. With these audits come steep fines if the pharmacy is found to be out of compliance.

Since June 1, 2013, the Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights (HHS OCR) has levied fines totaling more than ten million dollars. Many recent articles about HIPAA audits warn that this past year was just the tip of the iceberg and that next year will bring even more substantial penalties and fines. For more information about what the HHS OCR has to say about their future enforcement of HIPAA and the penalties they’ll impose, click here.

I have said it time and again in this blog and at my speaking engagements, YOU, as a pharmacy owner, cannot afford to ignore or put the minimum amount of work into making your pharmacy compliant. The audits are happening and the fines and penalties are considerable.

How do you get and stay compliant, you ask?

Here are four tips that can help you get started.

  1. Appoint a staff member that you trust to be your Compliance Officer.
  2. Research available software and tools that can assist you in becoming compliant.
  3. Stay on top of it! There are often updates and changes to the regulations. If you don’t pay attention, you can fall out of compliance.
  4. Be sure that your employees are trained on all of the pharmacy’s procedures and their training is documented.

This seems like a lot of work, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, it can be if you let it. Lucky for you, there are consultants out there that can help. While they won’t do ALL of the work for you, they can DEFINITELY make the work easier.

PRS Pharmacy Services offers COMPLIANCETrack, a new program that puts ALL of the compliance policies and procedures you need at your fingertips. No more going from program to program to keep your compliance up to date. View some promo videos on this innovative program to see how it can make compliance easier and less worrisome so you can spend time where it matters—on your valuable patients.