Conference Session to Help Health System Professionals Manage Risk Through Understanding of Professional Compliance and Legal Roles

MILWAUKEE – Health system experts looking to mitigate risk by advancing their understanding of the differences between the roles of compliance professionals and legal counsel will benefit from an upcoming presentation at the Health Care Compliance Association's annual Compliance Institute.

Heather L. Fields, a Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren shareholder and chair of the firm's Hospitals and Health Systems group, will co-present a conference session titled, "Strategic Risk Management: Navigating the Intersection of Compliance and Legal," along with Christopher Toner, associate counsel of Aspirus Inc, and Sandy Lakey, chief compliance and privacy officer of Aspirus Inc.

The session will take place from 8 to 9:45 a.m. on Wednesday, April 22 at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

Fields' presentation will discuss how a health system's compliance and legal functions intersect and why these roles need to be carefully coordinated. Attendees will learn strategies for overcoming real and perceived obstacles to better collaboration, as well as uncover opportunities to better manage enterprise risk by coordinating roles.

"As oversight and regulation of complex health systems continues to increase, it's becoming more critical to understand the overlap and differences between compliance and legal roles," said Fields. "Although the busy lives of compliance professionals and legal counsel can make the task of coordinating seem overwhelming, I'll walk conference attendees through real-world strategies and provide practical tips tacking this difficult challenge."

More than 2,000 health care compliance professionals will meet at this year's Compliance Institute to help ensure that their organizations' compliance programs are able to meet the public and government's expectations of health care providers.

The Health Care Compliance Association's annual Compliance Institute is the primary education and networking event for health care compliance professionals. This year's event features 148 sessions, 254 speakers and 10 educational tracks, and will take place from April 19 to 22.