AI, Enforcement, and Quality Oversight: Big Lessons From HEALTHCON and HCCA

Every spring, the compliance calendar gets a little crowded. This year, HEALTHCON and HCCA’s Compliance Institute landed within weeks of each other—and both delivered big. 

In the latest episode of Compliance Conversations, CJ Wolf and Brian Burton unpack the themes that stood out. Artificial intelligence dominated the agenda, with sessions exploring how healthcare organizations can—and must—develop responsible governance for emerging tools. Attendees also got fresh insight into how enforcement agencies are thinking. CMS Administrator Kimberly Brandt made it clear: the agency’s focus on fraud, waste, and abuse is sharper than ever. 

For those wondering whether new political leadership would shift compliance priorities, the message was clear: enforcement isn’t slowing down. OIG and DOJ guidance documents remain foundational tools for evaluating program effectiveness, and sessions reinforced the continued relevance of the False Claims Act. 

Another hot topic? Quality of care. Presenters from Providence shared lessons learned from a quality-focused CIA, showing how compliance and patient safety teams can collaborate more effectively.  

Whether you were there in person or catching up from home, this episode captures the spirit—and the substance—of April’s biggest compliance gatherings. 

Episode Transcript

Welcome, everybody, to another episode of compliance conversations. 

I'm CJ Wolf with Healthicity. 

And today, we've got Brian Burton from Healthicity as well. Welcome, Brian. 

Hello, CJ. It's so good to see you again. 

Yeah. Good to see you. And we both survived, couple weeks of of heavy conferencing, in both coding and auditing and compliance. And so that's what we're gonna talk about today. 

Yeah. It's been a wild and crazy week keeping up with our regular work and then traveling and visiting the conferences and catching up with everyone. It's been fantastic. 

Yeah. It has been. It's I I kind of personally wish they were in different months, some of these big conferences, but it is what it is, and, it just makes for busy travel. And and Sarah's gonna join us a little bit because she's gonna, help us talk about, one of the conferences as well. But, so we thought we would talk today a little bit about HEALTHCON, which is AAPC's, kinda large national conference. 

They have many conferences, of course, but, HEALTHCON is is the big one. That was in Orlando in earlier in April. And then we're gonna talk about HCCA in their compliance institute in Las Vegas, which was also a real success and a lot of a lot of fun. So I thought I would just kinda share, a little bit about HEALTHCON. Brian, I don't think you were at HEALTHCON, so we'll kinda spare you from from some of those kinds of questions unless you've got any comments on on some of these topics. But HEALTHCON was great. 

It was good to see so many people. Those of you who aren't as familiar, you know, some of you who are maybe more from a as just like a strictly compliance background and and you're not as much into coding and auditing. 

HEALTHCONhas all sorts of sessions focusing predominantly on on medical coding, but also medical billing. There's also compliance, those sorts of things. 

One of the things that that I always love about, HEALTHCON is they usually can get some medical specialty coding in. So there was a deep dive into anesthesia. That was a great, session. 

Embolization. 

So those of you who who may not be familiar, you know, embolization is when, you you know, we all have we have a cardiovascular system. We have blood vessels. And sometimes you wanna embolize or block off those blood vessels for certain reasons. You might be treating cancer. You might be treating a stroke. You might be doing different things. 

And it it, embolization is when they wiggle catheters and wires up into these vessels, and they and they stop the the flow of blood in those in those blood vessels. So those are just a couple quick examples of some very specific, medical specialties that we get into. I spoke about critical care, in an advanced, coding session where we, talked about critical care coding. So critical care is an e and m code, set where it's a little different than the normal e and m coding that you think about where you have all these different levels. Right? You're picking from three or five levels, and and you use the medical decision making chart and those sorts of things. Critical care, you have to meet, certain, levels of illness or injury in the patient as well as delivery of a certain kind of service that prevents further life threatening deterioration. 

And so there's all these words about what is critical care and when is it when has it been administered. It's also a time based code. And it really comes down to just deciphering the the medical record. 

So critical care coding is one of those where I think the more a coder learns about clinical information and understands clinical diseases and the treatments, the better our the better they are at being able to decipher, was an intervention given that was, you know, trying to prevent further life threatening deterioration, those sorts of things. So so many so many great sessions. Saw a lot of good colleagues and friends. 

But I also wanted to, ask Sarah a little bit about the booth. I know, you know, with Helvicity, they two of the major products, right, are compliance manager and audit manager. But audit manager had some pretty big announcements, I think, in that booth. Sarah, tell us a little bit about what what was announced and and how just that whole, booth experience was as far as you know. 

Yes. And you're right. We just released audit manager plus, which is our newer version, and we were really excited to kinda have a bigger presence at HEALTHCON this year. 

And we did a, demo that, you know, was highlighted for the whole conference, where Erin Whitelock and Debbie Behunin, highlighted that new product. And, you know, it's exciting because we're helping auditors streamline their workflows, and this product has some really great new features. 

And so we were able to show individuals, and it's always fun because as you guys know, clients will come by and say hello, and we're getting to meet them on a face to face basis. And, and then also, I like to call them just kind of our little fan club. I'll have tons of people come by and just say, oh, I love your webinars as CJ. Where's Brian? 

You know? And they're just excited to get to meet these people that you kinda feel like you have this relationship with because you see them almost, you know, few times a month, and you're learning from them. And it's it's really fun to make those connections. And then as well as just people coming by that don't know what Health City is or what we do, and so it's a great opportunity to let them know and add to our fan club. 

So HEALTHCON was really fun, and, we look forward to being there next year in Dallas. 

Yeah. Great. Well, thanks for sharing that. Now I'll share one last thing on HEALTHCON, then we can maybe transition to HCCA. 

And this is kind of a transition because the other session I spoke in was about compliance. So they do, they do have a lot of compliance sessions. And so I spoke about what Brian and I have been speaking about for for the last year or so, the OIG's guidance, the new guidance documents, really good discussion to hear how other people are approaching compliance and those sorts of things. And so, maybe that's a good segue, Brian, into into HCCA. 

What overall, what do you think of it? So this was in Vegas. It was just a couple days ago. So we're recording this, beginning of May. It was, what, last week, April twenty something through May first or something like that. 

Yes. Last, so it's it's May fifth, but we are just three days post conference. 

And it was fantastic. It was great to see many of the many of our peers and, customers and and prospective customers alike and visit us at the booth. It was fantastic. 

I had an opportunity to attend, numerous sessions and, you know, found the reoccurring themes of artificial intelligence, our effectiveness of compliance, both from an OIG and a DOJ perspective. There were several presentations using each of the two methodologies as catalyst to to understand how compliance works in a health care environment. 

And then we also had an opportunity to hear from CMS directly and our new CMS administrator, Kimberly Brandt. And so there were I don't know what the exact number, but the the main the main banquet hall was nearly full, which was good to see. 

I think if I were subjectively counting, we had more people in attendance in Vegas than we did last year in Nashville. So it was, it was a lot of fun. 

That's awesome. Yes. And I was also able to attend in person for a day or so, and then I participated, virtually, which was nice. You know? 

I I wish I could have been in person all of the days, but, just having that option as an attendee to you know, if you can only be there a little bit and then to see some of these virtual sessions. So I participated virtually, in the later sessions, and it was it was really good. 

And maybe we'll just briefly talk about kind of the the kind of a big difference in the field. A lot of us are used to seeing a lot of government speakers at at at HCCA, and a lot of us go to a lot of those those sessions. So OIG, you know, normally, we almost always hear from the inspector general, so there was an absence there. 

And the only government speaker that I'm aware of was was Kim Brandt, who has spoken in conferences and has been involved in health care at the government level for decades. She's a wonderful person. 

But we we all kinda felt like there was a little bit of a difference, quite a bit of a difference because we're used to hearing those government speakers. And so, that was an absence. I actually missed the, the session. 

She was the keynote. 

Kim Brandt was the keynote on a Tuesday morning, and I missed that one. But it sounds like you were president. I don't know if you have any any thoughts, and I and I know a lot of people are probably thinking, you know, you know, politically, you know, the new administration and and our thing you know, is the sky falling and and different things? And, yes, there's definitely changes, and we felt that. 

And not to get into maybe the political side of things, but just from a compliance conference attendee perspective, just what was your general thought? 

Yeah. I I I do think it was one, it was it was awesome to see Kim speak again. Right? I think if I recall correctly, she said she's on her third tour duty at CMS. 

And and, you know, keep in mind to from an administration standpoint, the conference was just at the tail end of the first hundred days of the of the new administration. You know, Kimberly said that, doctor Oz had had, you know, recruited her to come back and could you know, persuaded her really to come back to CMS for a third tour. 

And and, you know, with the purpose of aligning to that message from the new from the new administration that they want to make America healthy again. 

And so, you know, it was good to hear, directly from from CMS and their emphasis on fraud, waste, and abuse. 

I I took a few notes. I mean, they they very purposely, I think doctor Oz is quoted as, you know, they want to wage war on fraud, waste, and abuse, and it's all hands on deck to do so. You know, that idea of, or or any idea that CMS and and OIG, DOJ are gonna steer away from from compliance and fraud, waste, and abuse activities, I think, would be a a misconception. 

You know, the the tools and techniques, may change. 

And we heard directly from from Kim. She talked about her her experience working directly with the Doge team and how they were using technology and specific algorithms to identify potential waste and abuse opportunities, and that may that may even lead to fraud. 

You know, she she gave a really clear picture of how even in her first thirty days of being there back as the administrator, that they were making definitive changes, and definitive steps forward to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse. 

She did say that they, you know, while they were going to be more aggressive in finding fraud, waste, and abuse, the intent was to be, collaborative with providers. Right? And she was very clear that there was no intent to to to drive, you know, fraud to drive providers out of business. Right? Unless you're unless you're committing fraud and, you know, and those civil and criminal penalties stack up. Right? The the their goal at CMS is to be an education center and protect the integrity of the program. 

Yeah. 

Well and I I heard similar things. So I attended, on the next day, a a virtual session. I was virtual. He was there. Greg Demski, Gregory Demski, who for years, you know, was with the OIG, and I think just in the last couple years, has gone into kind of the private practice. But he he shared some interesting, perspectives. He was actually supposed to speak with Kim Brandt in that session, but she was not able to speak in that one, I guess. 

But he's he spoke and you know, I'm just paraphrasing. This was my takeaway. So if I misspeak, it's my mistake, not his. But my general impression was he was saying, look. 

He, you know, he'd been with the with OIG for for decades and had worked through many different administration changes. And he said, look. You know, every administration changes their priorities. That's that's kind of the whole process. 

That's the whole point of of elections, and and people change priorities. And but he said overall from a compliance perspective, he didn't see, any, like, major shift in in the False Claims Act in particular. 

I think he did mention, you know, there's been comments and and announcements about the foreign corrupt practices act, those sorts of things, which do affect compliance programs, maybe not a lot in the health care space if you're only in the United States as much. 

But, you know, he said, look. It the I think he said full engines, you know, full steam ahead on false claims act, cases. And so I I think from a compliance perspective, it doesn't really mean that we we change anything. And he said, yeah. 

There's probably some you're not gonna be able to predict as well. And he said, so that might even be that was one point that I thought he made that was really interesting was he said, look. We might need to be more astute than we have in the past because of the unpredictability of of what priorities might be. They might change on a dime, and they might shift and this and that. 

And so I thought his session was really good. I thought it was very, reasoned, and and he kinda walked through then, evidence that he's seen that this is still, you know, this is still moving forward. He he he spoke about one of the DOJ, attorneys giving a speech recently and, that the the tone and the tenor is still there, that it's it's kind of always been that, to your point. Right? 

Fraud, people who are who are cheating us, that that doesn't really, it's not a one party or another party. It's it's you know? It's Yeah. Those are US tax dollars, and and and I've yet to see any administration who who, who doesn't go after that. 

And he also spoke about how he was in the government during the first Trump administration. So he administration. So he he kinda just shared things and and, I thought gave a really good perspective. So I don't know if the HCCA is if these are gonna be recorded. 

I think they were recorded, the virtual ones, and I think they're probably gonna be available. So if you attended, once those become available, that might be a good one to listen to as well. 

Yeah. I agree. And and I know they were recorded, and there was an announcement that they would be available. I don't think they're quite available today as we have this podcast. 

But, transitioning to that, speaking of recording, you know, one of the major themes is artificial intelligence. Right? We saw a little bit of that last year's conference maybe even in in twenty twenty three, you know, the advent of, you know, what that means. 

There was a a number of really good sessions on artificial intelligence and and how that impacts, compliance and our our job in in health care in general. 

One of my favorite sessions was p twenty six. It's, it was titled third party AI solutions managing compliance risk, excuse me, through the vendor life cycle. So this was a this was an approach on what is the evolution of, of compliance or and, excuse artificial intelligence and how it relates to compliance? And I really thought the the the presenters, Robert, and I'm gonna mispronounce his name. I apologize. 

But Kent Kentrots, he's a partner at Kirkland Ellis, and then Sean Sullivan, who was a partner at Alston, Bird. They did a really good job of describing the evolution of the legal, and and how certain state laws are evolving to address artificial intelligence and what defines a developer and what defines defines development and then the use of those tools and how it relates. 

So if your if your organization is considering artificial intelligence, you know, I highly recommend going back to that presentation. They they talked about several state laws that are emerging that really do define some governance requirements. And then the the overarching theme of what they described and, again, this was a great presentation, establishing a governance for AI within your organization. 

And their thoughts and insights there were really good. Right? So, you know, as compliance professionals, I think we're all really good at establishing frameworks and methodologies to manage compliance. 

Now we have this new emerging technology that will require us to apply those same principles, to a new technology. 

Yeah. And I also attended the session, Kelly, Willenberg and Elizabeth Wade. I think this was on, when you look at my notes, went, Tuesday, late it was one of the last sessions on Tuesday. It's session four zero four. 

So that one will probably become available too. Same thing. 

Artificial intelligence in action, leveraging AI for enhanced compliance. 

And and I'll just say kind of two outside of the conference, just my interaction with clients. 

Clients are starting to use tools out there, and, I know the government is. The government and enforcement agencies are using AI as well. One of the tools that I became aware of was a tool where AI is reviewing the medical record, and you can put in different criteria. I don't know how I can't speak to how good it is yet, but, I'm aware it's out there, like coding. 

Right? So, like, if you're if if you want, AI to review every single E and M code, tell and say, look. This is a level five or a level four based off of this or this. You could even put in specific criteria if you were looking maybe for noncoding things like quality or, you know, those sorts of things. 

So I think I mean, it's here. It's happening. 

Vendors are out there. So we're gonna be asked questions about it. So we have to figure out, you know, how are we going to use it in our programs. 

I I couldn't agree more, and I I'm I'm going back to and I'm recalling. I may paraphrase here. I don't wanna steal anyone's credit. But from that presentation, third party AI solutions, that was one of the emphasis, from their presentation is it will artificial intelligence and its use in health care will evolve. 

Right? It's not like we're gonna find a a significant enough risk to take us away from using it as a tool. And two, three, and five years from now, it's it is likely to change the way we evolve. And and at least from my perspective, compliance and privacy professionals are gonna be an integral component to helping the AI tools develop and mature so that we can trust them. 

Right? So that we can evolve. Yep. 

One of the great things that, again, came out of that p twenty six, event. And when it when the webinar is available, I highly recommend going back to it. Right? You know, we talk about fraud, waste, and abuse and the claims and claims accuracy, but, you know, on the forefront of that is the delivery of care and making sure that while while these tools continue to evolve and we can implement them in a care setting, we're not creating patient harm or we're not creating bad outcomes, and that it is truly improving health care, not creating more risk or harm. 

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. 

You know, that might be a good place just to take a quick break. We'll be back in a few seconds, everybody, and and we'll, continue on with our conversation. 

Welcome back from the break, everyone. 

We're talking about some of these interesting and fun conferences, in the month of April that we've and part of May that we've been attending. And, Brian, we're we're talking about, AI. 

I I don't know if if it's okay to shift gears a little bit. You know what? You and I did a a webinar. I don't know if it was it's probably within the last ten months where we talked about, quality and compliance programs, and we were specifically talking about the OIG's guidance documents. 

I attended a session that was really good. It was on May first. So I I guess this is technically post conference, but the session is w number one. So w one. 

It was implementing the OIG, GCPG practical strategies for incorporating quality and patient safety oversight into a compliance program. And the two speakers were both so, it's Tamara Smith and Stephanie Tasker. 

If I remember right, they're both from Providence. 

So Providence is a huge health system in the in the northwest of the United States, and in the western United States. And if you recall a few years back, they they had a a settlement that had to do with allegations of medically unnecessary neurosurgeries. 

And in addition to the settlement, there was a CIA, and part of the CIA was a requirement to have a what's called a quality CIA or so quality of care. And so they shared a lot of information that I thought was really, really helpful. 

You know, they're very transparent in in what they're trying to accomplish. 

But that's something that, you know, we've talked about, and we've seen a little bit more of an emphasis from OIG in in guidance documents about kind of collaboration between quality of care and compliance, making sure that that there's some sort of, oversight to some degree of of the quality and and patient safety and those sorts of things. I thought that was a really a really great session. 

I'll have to go back and watch that recording. 

You know, and to your point, we've we've emphasized this for a little over a year now. I think the webinar you talked about even I think we did that just before the GCPG came out where we're talking about compliance and the correlation to patient care. And, of course, we saw in in November twenty twenty three with the GCPG, you know, the the very purposeful inclusion of quality of care and and, you know, quality care improvements and how that relates and what our responsibilities are as compliance programs to, you know, reinforce and support those initiatives being the basis in which we operate. Right? It's one thing to to have fraud, waste, and abuse activities. 

But above all, it's the delivery of care and taking care of the individual that takes the precedent. 

Yeah. Yeah. And they and they did talk about how they did not interpret nor do I think either of us interpret those OIG guidance documents to say compliance takes over quality of care. Right? 

It's a different set of, skills and expertise and subject matter. But just understanding what they're doing and how they're doing it and making sure that, those people that are involved in quality and patient safety also have a voice in in compliance. And so I was rereading the GCPG, and it talked about how the compliance committee should probably have somebody with expertise or leadership authority from the quality and patient safety area on the compliance committee. And so I thought that I I just kinda it was interesting to see things that we've talked about in guidance documents and then a presentation that was very thoughtful on how they're trying to approach that, in real life. 

And so that was that was really helpful for me to see that. 

And and to that, I'd you know, transitioning from quality, I I want we haven't touched on specific DOJ and their and their evaluation. But, again, that their guidance document was also updated, recently. 

But we also there was a session called, one zero eight, understanding the the DOJ's evaluation of corporate compliance programs, which was led by, Jason Erlendspill. 

Forgive me, Jason, and Henry, Leventis, both attorneys. And Jason, Jason's currently a chief compliance officer at Ardent, but also a former AUSA out of the middle, middle district of Tennessee, was really speaking towards, you know, the regulatory landscape and the DOJ's evaluation of corporate compliance programs. And the theme of, you know, while we have new evaluation criteria, the theme of what it is, why it matters, how it works, and though those three core questions are still evident in the new in the revised version. Right? And I think one of the things we do here at Hovisity is offer that solution or evaluation of, compliance programs using, you know, the GCPG and the DOJ's criteria. 

Because I think if we use those, they're you can't implement all of it at once. Right? But using that criteria to help, mold your compliance program will be a a great tool. 

Yeah. The principles on which to the principles on which to use to implement your compliance activities. 

Yeah. And you mentioned, that that the DOJ that document was recently updated. I wanna say September of twenty four Yeah. Maybe the last one that I'm aware of. And in that last update, guess what they put in there? Comments about AI. So to kinda bring this full circle to what we were talking about before, such a good and important document to also read. 

So interesting. 

Kind of talking about enforcement a little bit. So another session that I attended was also on May first, that last day, kinda post conference. And it was, a group from Tennessee, University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville. 

They the title of it so this is session w seventeen, sending millions to a MAC repayment lessons learned. 

And what I thought was interesting is, again, compare you know, similar to the, quality and safety session, this was from a a a system or a medical center that was pretty transparent and was able to share kind of the whole experience from start to finish. Their issue had to do with a three forty b drug, payment, and use of a certain modifier, and and I won't get into the details. But I I really just appreciated their ability to kind of explain how they worked with the MAC, how they sent millions of dollars back. 

It was interesting because there were some regulatory and program programmatic changes along with a separate lawsuit that was going on unrelated to them, but it affected the three forty b program. 

It ended up that the MAC had to give a bunch of that money back to the medical center anyway because of certain things. 

Anyways, it's a very interesting story, but I just appreciate, groups and individuals and organizations that are able and willing to to share some of those experiences. 

It gives you real insight because we all work with you know, we identify maybe an overpayment of some sort and and how what's the process in giving it back? And you and I have you and I have done sessions on that, right, with the sixty day rule and all those sorts of things. We've done webinars. And, so I I really appreciated that one as well. Yeah. 

You your comment on that one, and I haven't seen that one, but I wanna go back and watch the the webinar too. 

That you reminded me of our most recent sixty day rule presentation where we had that direct question from the audience of what happens when the MAC doesn't take our take our refund. Right? And so what does that process look like? 

I know you and I both have had that experience before. It can be a little difficult. You gotta navigate. And, again, communication is key. You gotta find you know, we send the letter and the refund check. Right? But, it's finding that direct interaction with the MAC and making sure they understand why, and what are what are the what are the basis is or the basis behind the refund and how you calculated it. 

And so I can't wait to watch that one. 

Yeah. So let me ask you, Brian. Did you attend so I I think I may have attended one that had to do with kind of data security, privacy, HIPAA. 

So we haven't really talked about that space of compliance yet. Anything did anything pop out at you in that in those topics? 

Oh, I'm perfectly transparent. Gotta go back and watch some of those. All of the the HIPAA, in security sessions that I've that I wanted to attend conflicted with the OIG and DOJ items that I was wanting to see, and I had to I I I have not seen the, Wednesday and Thursday sessions yet. 

But, you know, to your point, those those things are evolving. 

You know, there's the proposed, the proposed rule to or the proposed final rule to the security rule, which is not yet in effect. Right? It's still proposed. Right. And it could still it could still evolve significantly. 

Considering some of the changes that we've seen in the through the OIG, CMS, DOJ, and the OCR, we may see a delay in that in that release of the final rule or it to go into effect. But, you know, I think it's key that we we continue to monitor those things. And then to circle back to AI, the way we implement technical security in today's workforce is continually evolving. Right? The threats change. Our responses have to change in correspondence. 

And so, you know, and we have a number of other educational sessions where you and I have done these together. Healthicity, I've done several with other other CISOs and other, security experts. Right? Maintaining our relationship as compliance professionals with the IT security community, making sure that, you know, while we may not configure a a a a router or a firewall, understanding what our CSOs roles are, and staying in direct communication with them is paramount to protecting the organization and maintaining our HIPAA compliance. 

Yeah. I one of the sessions that I usually like to attend, but there was a conflict for me was the they usually do this privacy officer roundtable. 

And sometimes there's a part one and a part two. And I think there was a part one and part two this year as well. 

It's usually in the pre conference, so it's Monday. 

And I was speaking at the same time as one of those sessions, but that's usually, good sessions. I don't think they record those because they I think they get into some pretty juicy stuff, and I think on purpose, they they don't record them. So those are always good ones to attend in per in person. But there was, the one on I think it was a general session. 

Let me find it in my notes here. Yeah. On Wednesday about what you should change following the change health care incident, lessons learned and strategies to consider. So that was a really interesting one, and that was a general session. 

And so, Lynn's sessions did that. 

Now that one, I'm sure, will be it was recorded, and, people might find that one interesting. I thought it was pretty interesting. 

I'll mention too I just mentioned that, I was speaking maybe I'll just highlight really quickly what we were talking about. So we were doing physician compliance. 

I was on a panel, with Sean McKenna, who's a former USA, US attorney. 

He's in the Dallas area now in private practice, and then Alyssa Scott. 

And, we basically talked a lot about some of the recent trends in physician compliance and enforcement, a lot of coding and billing, incident two. 

Of course, there's always, anti kickback and and those sorts of things. So those of you who are a little bit more in the, physician kinda realm, that was a session that that you might want to look at. I don't know if if they recorded that one or not. I should probably know these things. I was speaking. 

I of of all of the sessions that you attended, CJ, what was your favorite? 

I have to probably say that patient quality one and and then safety and collaborating between compliance, mainly because it it's an it's a little bit newer of a topic for me. 

And so I learned a great deal. 

Some of you may know that I also teach, at a university where, it's a it's a master's degree program in patient safety leadership. I teach kind of a course that deals with the regulatory environment. And so, it's kind of my course is compliance based, but the whole program is all about patient safety leaders trying to get develop leaders in patient safety. So I thought that was a really interesting session because they shared, number one, kind of a little bit of the backstory of of this their corporate integrity agreement, and then they shared how they were actually interacting with patient safety and patient quality, of care professionals. And so part of the one of the hats I wear in my life is in that realm, and so I just thought it was really interesting because I also come from a compliance background. So to kinda see how those two were working at that system, I thought was really interesting. One other that I also didn't mention was, third party let me find it. 

Managing third parties. 

Oh, right here. Mass it was, session one zero four, mastering the third party risk puzzle, strategies for health care compliance professionals. That was Karen Coleman and David Lane, also, probably coincidentally, of of, Providence Health. And so they were they're a huge, huge, huge organization, and they're talking about the thousands of third parties that they have. 

Right? And so just kind of that just kinda makes my head spin when there's that many people to deal with, that many parties to deal with. So those were probably two of my my favorite. Did you did you have a favorite? 

My favorite was probably Kimberly Brandt's, the general session on CMS just because I think it was the core of kind of what we'll see from this administration. 

It it gave us some insights on how not only the CMS, but maybe how OIG, DOJ, and OCR will stay the course from a compliance perspective. And I think that was my key takeaway is you mentioned it earlier. Administration's change sometimes every four years, almost inevitably every eight years. Right? There there are evolutions from administration. 

Right. Our responsibility as compliance professionals to combat fraud, waste, and abuse and to maintain our compliance programs will likely only be adjusted some through from administration to administration. 

And then Yeah. 

My second favorite was the, the third party AI solutions managing the compliance risk. I really thought, you know, I really I I genuinely feel as compliance professionals, we have to embrace this technology. We have to we have to understand and how it influences our jobs and how it influences our ability to deliver care, and then how that delivery of care may change and what our compliance tools and techniques may need to evolve to adjust similarly. 

Yeah. Absolutely. Well, we're we're getting towards the end here, but let me maybe if you have thirty seconds, anything from the exhibit hall, from the booth, stuff that, that, you thought was, was great? I know you probably spent a lot of time at the HealthVity booth. You know, what did you guys do? Any any favors getting paid? What what was going on? 

We saw, I had had a chance to connect with several clients, a couple that I had not met yet in person, and and so that was fantastic. It's always good. You know, the HCCA, some of the HCCA board members circled through the suit through the exhibit hall thanking the exhibitors for their for their contributions. 

You know, it was really good to see, you know, both friend info. 

You know, there are tons of good solutions on the market. Many of those individuals we know, and they know us, and we we have a good time. There's a bit of friendly competition, but, you know, it was really good to connect with with the people. Right? You can never replace Zoom is fantastic, but it's always good to connect in person and and talk to to all of the individuals that care about compliance. 

That's right. And so I think, looking towards next year, is it is it their thirtieth? Let's see. This was the twenty this was the twenty ninth. So their thirtieth annual compliance institute is it's in Orlando. Yeah. 

Yep. At at Universal. So gonna be warmer. It we you know, it was I think it I think they tell me it was unseasonably cool in Las Vegas. Right. It was pretty cool, or temperature cool, in Las Vegas this year, but it will be decidedly warmer in for the thirtieth in Orlando. 

Awesome. Well, thanks, Brian, for all your thoughts and and insights into what you you gleaned from the conference. It was it was good. And, so thanks for being with us today. 

Yeah. Thank you. Have a wonderful day. 

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