Your First Look at HCCA’s Upcoming Events

Adam Turteltaub, the Chief Engagement & Strategy Officer for the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics and the Health Care Compliance Association, joined us for our latest episode of Compliance Conversations!

Tune in to the episode, “The Insider Track on HCCA’s Upcoming Events,” to get a preview of what to expect at HCCA’s 27th Annual Compliance Institute as Adam and CJ discuss:

• Featured sessions and CEU opportunities for in-person and virtual attendees
• Why networking and connecting with colleagues is so beneficial for compliance professionals
• Ongoing resources and learning opportunities to boost your compliance knowledge

The Compliance Institute has been HCCA’s flagship educational and networking event for healthcare compliance professionals for more than two and a half decades. The event is a great opportunity to gain insights on real-world compliance issues, key trends, and practical applications to enhance compliance programs.

The event will be held April 23-26, 2023, in Anaheim, California.

Episode Transcript

CJ Wolf: Welcome everybody to another episode of Compliance Conversations. This is CJ Wolf with Healthicity. And today we have none other than, the one and only, Adam Turteltaub. Adam, welcome! 

Adam Turteltaub: Wow, I don't know if I can live up to that introduction!  

CJ: I know you can't.  

Adam: I hope so!  

CJ: We're so grateful for you to take a moment, and I'm going to tell our guests a little bit. We're going to talk about the Healthcare Compliance Association’s Compliance Institute that's coming up. We do this every year, get people pumped up. It's like the healthcare compliance conference to attend and Adam, I'm going to let him introduce himself in a moment, but he he's been doing this a long time and I'm sure he's got some good insights. And so, we're grateful to have him here.  

Adam, if you wouldn't mind, just take a moment and tell us a little bit about yourself and you know, maybe professionally where you came from and what you're doing now.  

Adam: First of all, I want to thank you for having me on your podcast. As you know, I do our Compliance Perspectives podcast. So, it's fun for me to be the one answering the questions instead of asking them for a change. It's a very different experience. So, I'm the chief engagement and strategy officer for the association, which means I do a lot of things in addition to the podcast, a lot of stuff looking towards the future of the association as well as ways we can better serve the membership.  

I joined the association back in 2008 after spending seven-plus years at a compliance training provider. Before that, I had a long experience of about thirteen-plus years in Ad agencies. Two years on Capitol Hill. So, as I say, I've got the perfect background for ethics, politics, and advertising.  

CJ: You go! I didn't know about some of that stuff, that's great. I'm glad.  

Adam: Well, you know, there's some parts of my past I like to leave there.  

CJ: I'm glad. That's awesome. You know, Adam, I've tried to think how many years I've been attending HCCA’s Compliance Institute, but it really is my favorite conference for healthcare compliance, I don't think there's anything else that really compares to it. And so, we love all our listeners, you know, our compliance folks and mostly in healthcare, and so, we wanted to, you know, get people excited. I'll be there. I know you'll be there, lots of people will be there.  

But tell us a little bit about the Institute this year. Maybe the who, what, where? Give us kind of a high level.  

Adam: Okey. So, the meeting will be taking place both live and virtually. The live meeting will be in Anaheim from April 23rd to 26th at the Anaheim Convention Center, which is basically just off the parking lots from Disneyland. A virtual option is available, from April 24th through 26th. In-person, there'll be 121 sessions to choose from in multiple tracks to follow. The virtual there would be 63, so it's a subset of them. There are over 200 speakers. And for those wanting to get certified or those who were certified and you know, want to keep their continuing education credits there's, well over 26 CEUs, Continuing Education Units, for those in person that are available, and you can earn up to 19.2 in the virtual meeting. And those are all, of course, live credits, which you need half of your credits to become from a live training to maintain your certification.  

The tracks this year that we'll have are; Auditing and Monitoring, Behavioral Health, Case studies, Compliance law, which is really focused on the lawyers in the crowd, Discussion groups, and General compliance hot topics, A track on how to succeed as a compliance professional, so it's more on professional skills, Investigations, Managed care, Physician compliance, Post-acute care, Privacy and security risk management, and that new innovation I just heard of called Telehealth so, ...  

CJ: Yeah, it's brand new!  

Adam: Yeah! I hear it's got promise and it's actually a very good time to be addressing it with the end of the public health emergency coming in May and a lot of tightening of restrictions on it once the emergency ends and the waivers go away. 

CJ: That's exactly right. Adam, I know a lot of us sometimes get multiple CEOs from different agencies, right? Like, is that still the case or they're, like NASPA and maybe some others... 

Adam: Oh yeah, yeah. So, if you need NASPA or CLE credits, you can always just fill out the form and we'll help you get those too. And I think I forgot to mention that we also will, as usual, have an exhibit hall. We've got over 60 exhibitors signed up, so you can see what all the latest solutions are out there. And of course, collect free chachkies to bring home.  

CJ: Yeah, that's right! Well, I love the HCCA's booth. I'm assuming you guys will have another good one this year?  

Adam: Oh yeah, I'm not sure exactly what's being given away. I heard there are going to be some copies of our former CEO Roy Snell's book, but I'm not sure. I'm guessing there'll be lots of pens, highlighters, those kinds of things again, and a few odds and ends out there, and I believe the Wheel of Fortune for which people team to line up endlessly and over and over again will be there as well, but I'm not promising!  

CJ: That's what I was just going to say, I just remember, you spin the wheel, right?  

Adam: Yes, there's much wheel spinning. I think it'll be there again given its popularity, but anything gambling related, you can't make a promise about.  

CJ: I remember one year I got my professional headshot done. I don't know, if that's something you still do.  

Adam: We're actually going to do a lot of things. We're going to be doing that again, it's always very popular. And it's one of those things where people need them, you know, you don't want to be the person who's got one that's ten years old and when you show up, people pause or, you know, try and make awkward conversation.  

CJ: That's exactly why I got one done, I think it was just two years ago, because I was one of those people using the old one and they're like, "You don't look anything like your picture," cause my old picture, I was wearing glasses and since then I've had LASIK done and they're like, "That's not you." But I didn't gain any hair, and people who know me know I'm bald, so...  

Adam: Yes, well, you know, I'm not far behind you in that crowd, but and thankfully, while many of my pictures are all done of them are of when I had a full head of hair and, the good old days! I'll be crying!  

CJ: Well, that's awesome. Thanks for kind of the nuts and bolts. I think it's a great location, I think. Do you have a guess of how many people usually attend?  

Adam: So, that's the hard thing. I mean, it's been kind of crazy, before the pandemic, we were up to close to 3000 people. Then we did really well during the pandemic on the virtual stuff. Last year we were expecting huge crowds, but then the Omicron wave hit just as the meeting was happening. We're starting to come right as people were making their final decision. So, the attendance was great virtual but not in person. This year we already have more people signed up to attend in person than we did for last year and we still have two months before the meeting.  

CJ: Wow, that's great!  

Adam: So, you know, we're expecting a healthy-sized crowd there. So, I don't know it.  

CJ: We all really appreciate that, that's great!  

Adam: Yeah, we're very excited and seeing things coming back, in fact, but a totally different meeting is our European Compliance and Ethics Institute, which is a general corporate meeting, will be taking place in Amsterdam in March. That meeting is actually going to be the largest one we've ever had, in Europe.  

CJ: Terrific! Yeah, that's terrific!  

Adam: So, it's interesting to see, but it's still difficult to talk to people at other associations too, no one can predict how many people are going to show up for anything anymore.  

CJ: I bet, and I'm sure there's a whole science and you guys have lived through it. And from least from an outsider's perspective, you've done brilliantly to mix the virtual and the in-person. I'm sure there's a lot of stress that we don't see behind. You know behind closed doors, but it comes off, to me it's like you guys do a great job.  

Adam: No, thank you. I take no credit for that. It's the meeting planners who do all of the really hard work and making sure it all flows so seamlessly, but...  

CJ: That's right. And ...  

Adam: It's... go ahead! No, I just want to say it's interesting to see what happens and truthfully, it's tough doing a meeting live and in person and virtual at the same time, but the virtual world has been a good one. It's opened up a lot of opportunities for us to offer programs out to the world that we might not have because people wouldn't necessarily go to a one- or two-day program. But if you offer it online on topics like, "Oh, I don't know, Training!”– CJ, teaches a training thing with us!  

People are willing to attend, and we've been able to actually do a lot more. The only weakness really with the virtual is, really twofold one, it's harder to do interactive, but people don't get to do the networking part and I can't underscore how important it is, I mean, from going to some of our live meetings, it's amazing to see how much people are just happy to be around their peers again and to be able to grab someone who's going through the same experiences to ask their questions. To try and just not feel alone anymore is just really powerful to see.  

CJ: It is!  

Adam: It's really touching and it's nice and it's validating. You know, humans are herding animals, that's the truth behind our biology. And for people being able to be with their herd or their pack again is very energizing. And that's what you get out of the live meeting, but you can't get out of a virtual one.  

CJ: Yeah, I completely agree. And I don't know how true this is, maybe just my own perception, but compliance professionals are kind of alone anyway like they're alone in their organizations that, you know, people don't just flock to us and they don't just love to see the compliance officer coming down the hall, sometimes they do, but usually they don't. So, it is kind of like a lonely profession sometimes. And just like you said, to get with others, that kind of get it and understand it. Just to commiserate, is such a great thing to do.  

Adam: No, it's great. And also, if somebody can say, "Hey! while we're talking, let me ask you a question, how would you deal with this? Or how would you, you know, what do you suggest there?" But I will share what insight I did learn for getting people to flop down in their room. One compliance officer noticed that her CEO loved chocolate. I think was Hershey's kisses in particular, and she always made sure to keep a jar of Hershey's kisses on her desk.  

CJ: Nice! 

Adam: And she said she probably had more talks with the CEO than almost any other compliance officer in the world because of it.  

CJ: There you go! Food and chocolate always work! Talking about networking, is there anything special? I know in the past, you may have done, like speed networking, those sorts of things. Do those things still go on?  

Adam: Speed Networking will be back at the meeting, so if you are coming, make sure you register for it. It's a separate registration form. It's no additional cost, it's just for the matching software. So, we'll have that and as usual in the exhibit hall will have a reception, so people will have a chance to meet each other and then have meals at lunch and is at the big round table, so you know, plop yourself down next to strangers each time. That's my big advice to people is it's always tempting to, you know, meet up with your friends, which is great. But if it’s people you are going to be going out with that night, sit next to a stranger at lunch and make a new friend.  

CJ: Absolutely! And, you know, even just like in, I know you know they don't get a lot of time before the sessions start, but just sitting next to people that just talking and you hear people ask certain questions and you meet with them afterward. A lot of that informal stuff is just, it's invaluable.  

Adam: Yes, absolutely! 

CJ: Well, this is great. Adam, let's take a short break and we'll be right back. 

Welcome back, everybody. Again, we're here with Adam Turteltaub, who is all-knowing when it comes to the Healthcare Compliance Institute. Okay, maybe overplaying it a little bit, but he's fun to talk to and he's fun to pick his brain and we we've been talking about the Compliance Institute, the 27th annual! Is that right? 27th?  

Adam: I think so. Wait, hold on! Let me look on the wall... 

CJ: Is that your oldest conference?  

Adam: I think that was the very first thing that was done. So yeah, 27 years.  

CJ:  Yeah, right. That's cool. So, one of my favorite things, Adam, are the keynote speakers and you've had some really good ones. And I just love them. Like there was a gentleman last year who and I apologize I can't remember his name, but he was kind of an IT expert and he had some really good, like images and stuff and he just he had a funny way of talking about it. And just a really way, good way of engaging people.  

Adam: Was it Mark Lanterman?  

CJ: I think so, yeah!  

Adam: Yeah, the cyber security? 

CJ: Yeah, and I loved it. Can you give us any insights on who might be keynote speakers?  

Adam: Yeah, Mark tends to be both entertaining and terrifying all at the same time as he regales you with how open so many systems are.  

So, this year we're still finalizing the one session where it looks like we're going to have somebody from a major social network site to talk about some privacy issues.  

CJ: Oh, nice!  

Adam: But we've got Christy Grimm, who of course is the OG at HHS, she'll be opening things up. She'll be followed by Melanie Fontes Rainier, who's the director of the Office of Civil Rights.  

CJ: Oh, nice!  

Adam: So, we get a good lesson there on everything from Medicare and healthcare fraud, to all the HIPAA-related issues. Then the FBI has confirmed, they're going to be speaking about cybercrime and some other trends going on.  

CJ: Oh, terrific!  

Adam: FBI is always just terrific in terms of having insights into what's going on and also importantly, how organizations should respond when there is an incident. So, those are our big you know keynoters, we have three sessions, we call them general sessions during the course of the conference, and then again the third one is still being finalized.  

CJ: That's terrific. As you said, we are recording this a little early, folks, It's the end of February. But you know we want to get it out and get you excited. And I don't want you to cut it too short.  

Adam: And by the way, give you plenty of time to buy comfortable shoes because there's plenty of walking and standing around.  

CJ: That's right. So, you mentioned a couple of the government speakers and I know, we usually have a mix of them as keynote, and then sometimes it seems like they bring a bunch of their staff that do breakout sessions. Is that something you think is going to happen again?  

Adam: Yes, in fact, there are several sessions, I didn't pull a list together for this, unfortunately, but the four people from the OG are going to be speaking in several of the breakout sessions as well. They're terrific about their willingness to share with compliance people what's going on, what they should be on the lookout and, you know, recognize the fact that we're both sides are interested in making sure organizations behave the way they should.  

CJ: And I'll just encourage our listeners to look, you know, on the agenda and see those, they are some of the most well-attended sessions, we all want to hear what the government has to say and they get some great folks and talk about some good detailed things.  

Adam: Yeah, and along those lines, seating is first come, first served at all the breakout sessions. So, if there's one that you really want to go to, make sure you get there early so you can get a seat.  

CJ: That is a good point. There was one that I was lollygagging and I was being slow and it was last year. It was like an interactive one, where they've been doing case studies or something and people were all at like individual small tables like, "Oh, that sounds like the best topic," and I was just slow and I was late, and I missed it.  

Adam: No, and there are fire marshal rules and we are in compliance. So, we have to follow up with them, so...  

CJ: I'm glad we're at a compliance conference, we're compliant! So, one of the things too that I've seen regularly is service projects. Is that something that's going to happen again? 

Adam: So, we were still, I checked into that because I was curious too. And my understanding is we're still looking into what we might do this year. We've tended to do them of late in the exhibit hall, so it's things like painting paintings for hospitals and other healthcare facilities.  

CJ: Oh, that's right! 

Adam: So, I have a feeling it'll be something along those lines, you know, the pandemic has eased a great deal, but I believe that there's still, you know, it's not as open to having gob of people come over to an institution like it used to be.  

CJ: No, that's true. I don't wonder if those days we're ever going to fully come back! 

Adam: I think they will. I think most things will, I mean you look at, you know, a year ago none of us were ever going to go back into the workplace again. And I guess it was yesterday, Amazon just joined the herd of companies that have increased the number of days in the office that they expect out of their workforce.  

CJ: Interesting, good to know. Tell me about just kind of those who do attend. Do they still have access to recordings? Is that or is that something that was mostly done during the pandemic time?  

Adam: No, no. Both the in-person and the virtual attendees can enjoy 60 days of access to all the session recordings, so you'll be able to, you know, if there's a great session that you want to hear again, you'll be able to do that, and likewise, if you had two sessions that were at the same time, you obviously could only go to one, but there'll be your chance to, in the 60 days after the meeting, be able to attend the session that you missed.  

CJ: Yeah, exactly. And I really appreciate you doing that because there are so many things that I want to go listen to, and sometimes I can't. And so, it's really nice to be able to kind of, you know, spread it out. I usually set a goal for myself after the conference to listen to like one or two every week. I know I don't necessarily get to hear everything but I always try to just kind of keep the learning going and it's great to hear. 

Adam: Well, it's also great for when you come back to the office and something else broke that you're like, "Oh, I wish I'd gone to that session," now you can.  

CJ: Exactly, right! Yeah, that's so true. Well, neat. What else am I missing? It's that, you know, Anaheim, so I'm sure people are going to take advantage of Disneyland.  

Adam: Yeah, Disneyland is, I mean, the parking lots are basically the only thing keeping you from that. And there are lots of other restaurants and things like that nearby. Hopefully, the weather will be cooperative. I live in LA and we've had a coolish winter, so thankfully we've gotten a decent amount of rain, which we were desperately in need of, though I do encourage everyone to only take short showers because we're not totally out of the drought woods yet.  

CJ: Yes, thank you for mentioning that.  

Adam: But yeah, it should be. Yeah, you're up in Utah, so you also know the West needs more moisture. And then, you know, the thing I encourage everybody to do is be as open not just to the learning but to each other there, you know, to be courageous and say hello to strangers. You know, if you see somebody who looks lost and confused, just walk up and say, "Hey, how's it going?" And if you know where things are and point them in the right direction and be really part of the community, because that's really what this is, it's not just a series of classes over a few days, it's a chance to connect with the community, be a part of it, and share your wisdom.  

CJ: And you know, in addition to kind of networking where we all kind of take advantage of that and we benefit from it. You know, try to I think, try to be a mentor or at least start some of those mentoring relationships. Give back a little bit. You know, I'm starting to actually, I feel like I'm kind of over that hill where I've, now it's my duty to give back a little bit because I'm getting older and I've benefited from you know, years, and years of other people giving to me and I think just another option.  

Adam: Well, you've done a lot of speaking which is a great example of it, but it's also the informal thing and if I can just, you know, not something, not compliance institute related but take advantage of HCCA net, you'll find it at community.hcca-info.org and it's our online social network site that's available all the time, if you're already in, an HCCA member or an SCCE member, and have a password and ID, you can just log in and start exploring. If you don't, you have to register. And right now, we're migrating our association management system software, so our database is kind of locked for the next few days. So, if you try and get in, I'm not sure when you're going to air this, but I'd wait till like, late in February, the end of February, to just to make sure.  

CJ: That's perfect. What else? I'm glad you brought other things up because this doesn't just have to be Compliance Institute, but you know, anything else that you want to share about the societies and maybe tell us again about your podcast and what you do there, and how often those come out? 

Adam: Yeah. So, a few things. So, the podcast, you can find it at complianceandethics.org, and it's right on our blog. You'll see the podcasts are all 10 to 15 minutes long, so they're perfect for commuting, or if you live in Los Angeles, four of them are perfect for commuting at a time or more, anyway, so they're designed to inform those the blog is right there with short pieces written there.  

And I would encourage people also to your point, CJ, about getting involved, is to do things like participate in a social network site or write an article for the magazine or something for the blog, a magazine is a good way to share some in-depth experience you have, the blog is 402,000 words, so you're basically talking at most 2 pages, and it's a good way to share one brief insight that people can get some value out of.  

And then think about submitting proposals for the conferences, whether it's the compliance Institute or Managed Care Conference or our higher-end research conference, whatever it is, or for a regional meeting, you know, we need speakers, we want a wide range of them. Not just the same people over and over again.  

The one thing I suggest is to try and find an interesting take on the topic, not just sort of the standard, what you need to know about HIPAA, but you know, some emerging issue that you think you've figured out, but a lot of people are still clearly struggling with or something that you're struggling with, everyone else's and identifying sort of ways that we can all start approaching it.  

Those are good ways to get people talking and to give back and don't only look at the annual conference just because that's when we get a lot of proposals for, so the odds are low.  

CJ: Right, right.  

Adam: But there's a lot of ways to think about doing it, including like you said, reach out when you talk to somebody who seems to be new and unfamiliar, talk to him then and say, "Let's just stay in touch," schedule a regular once a month, call or something.  

CJ: Yeah, exactly. One of your colleagues actually reached out to me. He participated in, you mentioned the virtual training workshop...  

Adam: The training workshop.  

CJ: We do on effective compliance training and he said, "CJ, would you be willing to just touch base with this gentleman? He's looking for a mentor," and you know, in this space, and it's an area that I spent some time. And sure, I mean that type of stuff is great, right? Cause you make relationships and it makes it so much more meaningful.  

Adam: Yeah, and truthfully, you know, there's a lot of people who get humble, and we all do thinking, "Oh, I don't know anything, you know, about this or that, or in general, I'm just..." And then you start talking to someone who's newer than you, and you realize, "I do know a lot!"  

CJ: Yeah, yeah!  

Adam: And there is stuff that you can provide. And even, and if you don't, you can say, "You know what, that's a little outside my field. But you know, Mary knows about that. Let me connect you with her."  

CJ: I could tell you I know a lot of things not to do! I've made enough mistakes, anyone who's been doing it a long time, so I could at least, you could save somebody from getting egg on their face maybe.  

Adam: Yes, I don't know if any of you are familiar with despair.com. That's where they've taken those Successories posters and made parody versions of them. And I used to have it on my desk, like all those despairs. There was a nice photograph with a caption underneath. And mine was a ship sinking and it said underneath that, "The sole purpose of your life may be to serve as a warning to others."  

CJ: Hey, that's good enough. One other thing real quick, as we're getting kind of towards the end, you shared something on social media recently about ChatGPT, right? about the conference, could you just tell us something about that? It's kind of cool. 

Adam: Yes. So, I decided everybody's been talking about ChatGPT, so I thought I would give it a try. And if you look at, HCCA has a group on LinkedIn, so look up Healthcare Compliance Association group, there's a corporate sort of page and then the group and in it, I posted what it said, where I think I asked it, "How do you get the most out of the HCCA Compliance institute? And I got to say, I was impressed. It was filled with lots of practical advice that makes sense for attending a conference. And it was interesting.  

CJ: That would that could be a fun presentation where you say, "Let's ask it, you know, three or four very significant compliance issues and how we approach it," and see, "Yes or no on this, is this good advice or not so much?"  

Adam: Right. No, and it's funny. There are a bunch of people I've seen do it on Twitter or elsewhere, and it's interesting. A lot of times it's dead on. Sometimes it's, you know, a bit off. Sometimes it's way off. Yeah, I wouldn't rely on it. But it's interesting to see it's sort of like if you look at what the consensus is around, it's a good way to see that.  

CJ: Yeah, exactly!  

Adam: But again, I would not stake my career on it at this stage!  

CJ: No, absolutely not. Well, Adam...  

Adam: It's good entertainment.  

CJ: It's been so great talking to you. 

Adam: You too!  

CJ: Any last-minute thoughts, comments, questions, or thoughts to share?  

Adam: Just make sure if you haven't signed up and you plan on doing so, do it early and make your hotel reservation because we have room blocks right there at the Convention Center and you don't want to find yourself, you know, a mile away in a motel surrounded by children and their parents all having fun at Disneyland. Not that you won't be having fun at the conference, but it'll be different fun.  

CJ: Exactly and I think there are maybe two hotels. If I remember right from the restore that ...  

Adam: Yeah, I think it's the Hilton and I think there's a Sheraton, I'm not sure or a Marriott, I don't know, but just tell me where to go and I can check in there.  

CJ: And they're right next to the Convention Center.  

Adam: Right next to the Convention Center.  

CJ: Yeah, I've seen them there before. That's awesome. Well, cool, Adam. Thank you again for taking the time and for sharing and for you and your colleagues at the societies that just do so much.  

Adam: Oh, thank you!  

CJ: We just really appreciate it.  

Adam: Oh, thank you!  

CJ: It's meant so much to me and my career, and so thanks for, for you and everyone. Thank everybody!  

Adam: More than welcome. You've done a lot for us too.  

CJ: Well, thank you, and thank you all for listening. I would love to see you at the conference. So please, you know, stop by the exhibit hall, all those sorts of things, or stop me in the hallway and love to talk and thank you for listening to the podcast. And if you liked it. Please, you know, give us a like and please subscribe so that we get a little bit more exposure and we can share with others. Thanks, everybody. Take care!