In this episode, I am joined by AMI Managing Director Stern. We consider how defense counsel can work proactively with independent monitors to help clients who may have sustained an ethical or compliance violation or are under government scrutiny for allegations of illegal misconduct in a wide variety of industries, disciplines and corporate settings. We look at a third-party independent in the health care industry.
In many ways the health care arena can be similar to other business, with their need to work with third-party independents. Stern said, “the cost of getting it wrong these days is very high. It’s not just the cost of hiring lawyers to defend you with a government agency or the Department of Justice. It is even more than the reputational risk. If you are a public company, your stock price is probably going to take a nosedive.” This makes bringing in a third-party independent a “cost effective step to try to get ahead of the situation.” All of this means that bringing in a third-party independent, on a proactive basis to assess a compliance program to bring it up to a best in class standard can really work as a business advantage. Stern believes that to be correct and added, “we work with the company at benchmarking and coming up with best practices. I think most companies want a kind of a state of the art,  best practice compliance program rather than simply rely upon what worked five years or 10 years ago.”
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