Committed to Honesty and Integrity in Medicine

The Office of Healthcare Compliance partners with the members of the Keck Medicine of USC community to assist you with meeting the compliance responsibilities required by our heavily regulated health care environment. We understand that navigating the medical environment is complex, especially during these uncertain and rapidly changing times. We want to assure you that we are here to help. We remain committed to acting with honesty, integrity and in compliance with rules and regulations in everything that we do.  

The foundation of our commitment to integrity is the USC Code of Ethics. Beyond that, our program is designed to help reduce violations of law, detect and promptly correct violations that do occur, and educate and advise our community on various health care compliance issues. We ensure that our hospitals, providers and staff comply with relevant laws and regulations that govern the delivery of health care to help promote your safety, privacy and quality of care.  

How We Implement Our Successful Compliance Program

The Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services expects that health care organizations implement a robust compliance program to ensure adherence to relevant government regulations.     

We take this responsibility seriously. Our dedicated team implements the seven elements of an effective compliance program in the following ways:  

1. Our compliance program is led by our Chief Healthcare Compliance and Privacy Officer, who manages and oversees compliance initiatives throughout the organization with the support of various compliance committees.  
2. Our office collaborates with key stakeholders to develop written policies and procedures to ensure our workforce operates within the law.   
3. We also incorporate disciplinary guidelines within the appropriate policies and make sure they are implemented consistently.   
4. Education is crucial to compliance. Our office provides annual compliance and privacy education, in addition to targeted training sessions, to ensure that our workforce is knowledgeable about relevant regulatory rules.     
5. To assess our compliance with relevant laws, we regularly test and monitor various regulatory risk areas across the organization.    
6. Additionally, we provide multiple avenues for our employees and others to contact our office with compliance concerns, including an anonymous hotline.   
7. Finally, our office performs investigations of reported concerns and recommends any necessary corrective actions.    

Our Areas of Support

While our office provides support in several areas, the scope of our compliance program can be distilled down to the following primary areas:  

• Patient privacy concerns  
• Hospital and provider documentation, coding and billing  
• Controlled substance compliance and drug diversion prevention  
• Improper gifts, referrals and kickbacks  
• Conflicts of interest  
• Health care fraud, waste and abuse 

How to Contact Our Office and Report Concerns

If you would like to report a compliance concern, we encourage you to contact our office in one of the following ways:  

1. Report online through the USC Report & Response website or by calling (213) 740-2500 or (800) 348-7454 (toll-free). This number is staffed by live operators 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
2. To contact our office with a privacy question or concern, please email us at privacy@med.usc.edu.   
3. To contact us with any other compliance questions or concerns, please contact us at compliance@med.usc.edu.   

We prohibit retaliation against any person who submits a good faith report to our office. If you experience any form of retaliation, please contact our office so we can take appropriate action.