Frequently Asked Questions: Reporting questionable practices

At Texas Children’s, it is important that we maintain the highest level of personal ethics in our interactions with patients, parents, peers, vendors, and the community as a whole.

As a Texas Children’s workforce member, if you see something that you believe to be unethical or illegal, you should raise your concerns or ask questions. You are the eyes and ears that prevent small problems from becoming big.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What types of issue should be reported to the Compliance & Privacy Office?
Texas Children’s policy requires every workforce member to report reasonable suspicion of questionable practices. Your suspicions should be reported even if you are not sure whether the conduct at issue is in fact illegal, unethical or otherwise violates Texas Children’s policies.

Examples of what to report include:

  • falsifying medical records
  • fraudulent billing
  • theft
  • lack of documentation to support claims
  • inappropriate access of a patient’s medical record
  • impermissible use and disclosure of protected health information
  • conflicts of interest
  • violation of applicable laws, regulations or policies

For additional information, refer to the following available procedure, Reporting and Documenting Compliance Issues.

2. How do I report a concern? What if I want to make a report anonymously?
In most instances, the best place to raise a concern is with your supervisor or another leader in your department. If you don’t feel comfortable sharing your concern with your supervisor or another leader, you also can reach out directly to the Compliance & Privacy Office, either by email Compliance@texaschildrens.org or by telephone at Ext. 4-2085.

Texas Children’s also provides a confidential and anonymous way to report compliance or ethical concerns. To make an anonymous report, you can either: 1) call the Texas Children’s Confidential Hotline at 1-866-478-9070, or 2) make a report online at http://mycompliancereport.com (enter password TEX).

3. Can I be punished or otherwise retaliated against for making a good faith report of suspected non-compliant conduct?

Absolutely not. Texas Children’s is committed to open communication and retaliation of any kind for reporting questionable practices in good faith is prohibited. No disciplinary action will be taken against someone who reports an issue in good faith, even if the issue turns out to be a “non-issue.”

For additional information, refer to the following procedure, Non-Retaliation Protection of Whistleblowers.

Remember, if you see something that you believe to be unethical or illegal, you should raise your concerns or ask questions. Thank you for your commitment to ensuring Texas Children’s continues its high standard of ethical practices in order to best serve our patients.

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