Risk Assessments: Why, What, When, How

As featured in Compliance Today, September 2022

A compliance program can only be truly effective at accomplishing its goal of preventing and detecting fraud, waste, and abuse when the program, its infrastructure (i.e., the seven elements), and the work the program does (i.e., the compliance work plan) are oriented around the organization's compliance risk profile.¹ To best prevent fraud, waste, and abuse, it's logical to focus on those issues where fraud, waste, and abuse are most likely and where the consequences of noncompliance are the most significant. Why would a compliance program spend its, oftentimes, small number of resources on issues that are not as crucial to get right? Nevertheless, compliance programs have not always understood, nor prioritized, risk assessment, leading to ineffective and inefficient efforts not oriented around the organization's most significant compliance risks.