Compliance Routines and Ruts
Successful people tend to thrive on routine and habits, according to speaker and author Michael Kerr. Routines are habits that are theoretically rooted in meaning and purpose. This is certainly the case in dental settings where we insist on strict adherence to patient schedules and continually seek to improve work habits.
Routines devolve into ruts when they become overly rigid without purpose or growth. Take the example of a coworker who shows up to work each day, but is not mentally engaged or committed. They seem to look at dentistry as a job and not a fulfilling, exciting career.
This scenario applies to your compliance programs (OSHA, HIPAA, etc.) as well. Is your OSHA or HIPAA program a thriving routine in your practice where everyone understands why you do what you do and seeks to grow in understanding of changing laws and rules? Or is it a series of meaningless, dull tasks that someone has to carry out?
If you answered the latter, your program needs a B-12 shot! Having an outdated manual gathering dust on a shelf or, worse yet, never even customized, is like ignoring a broken restoration and hoping it won’t get worse. Often ruts develop because there’s an assumption that “the laws haven’t changed” or there’s a lack of understanding of what is actually required. Either way, you are gambling with non-compliance.
The Institute for Dental Compliance and Risk Management can provide that understanding of the laws and re-energize your compliance routines. Become part of a network of like-minded dental professionals who thrive on acquiring and using their knowledge to set up meaningful and useful compliance routines.