Susan Walberg is an award-winning author, healthcare consultant, and attorney, working as the Principal Consultant at Compliance Ala Carte, LLC. Susan has worked in the healthcare arena for 30 years, across a wide range of settings. Her background includes work as a Fraud Analyst/investigator for Blue Shield, a Regulatory Attorney and Privacy Officer for a very large multi-state health system, a Compliance Officer, and a sub-contractor with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) working on Medicare Parts C and D fraud and abuse prevention and detection. Most recently, Susan has worked as a healthcare consultant, primarily providing compliance program guidance and development to a wide range of health care organizations, and has served as an expert witness relating to healthcare compliance.
Compliance Program Assessment & Development / Governance Support and Guidance / Risk Assessments / Organizational Development and Risk Mitigation / Charters, Policies, Procedures, Codes of Conduct / Compliance Training and Coaching
Compliance. A majority of Susan’s work involves helping new or transitioning organizations assess and develop their Compliance Program and related processes. This often includes a review of the organizational structure, staff, policies, procedures, and other documentation related to maintaining compliant operations. Susan has been involved in due diligence for various transactions, and has guided organizations through major transitions to ensure compliance requirements were not overlooked. She advises on best practices, but also on how to make the most efficient use of existing resources, and provides a realistic view on organizational risk and priorities, while collaborating with key stakeholders both in leadership, operations, and the Board. She has built multiple compliance programs from scratch, and helped reconfigure compliance programs in growing or changing organizations.
Susan has extensive experience in assessing compliance programs quickly, identifying gaps, and presenting realistic and efficient solutions, using existing resources whenever possible. Susan has helped manage Corporate Integrity Agreements and handled a wide range of government audits, investigation, and led breach responses for privacy incidents. She’s coached and trained a number of new Compliance Officers as well as Administrators, Board Members, and other leaders who need to have a solid understanding of their responsibilities for Compliance.
Susan brings a unique focus and an understanding of the importance of the organization’s culture, people, and challenges when assessing their operations, rather than conducting compliance reviews solely based on a checklist. As a result, her recommendations are customized to fit the unique needs of the organization but also to address identified risks in a realistic fashion. Her collaborative approach seeks to find solutions that fit within organizational cultures, rather than forcing changes that won’t be accepted.
Organizational Development and Risk Mitigation. Susan’s work with new and evolving organizations has moved from purely compliance program-focused to a more holistic organizational development role. Susan has been involved in providing guidance to various new Boards and Board Committees, including advising on matters such as proper roles, reporting relationships, and privilege/confidentiality. Susan has a strong grasp of healthcare roles, structures, and processes, and combined with her extensive experience and pragmatic, collaborative, approach is able to help clients navigate complicated organizational changes to develop the most efficient and logical structures within the culture and limitations of an organization, always keeping in mind the legal and compliance risks as well.
Organizational and Compliance Documents. Using her strong writing skills and experience, Susan adds great value in her ability to craft a wide range of corporate documents to help provide structure and formality where needed. Susan has done extensive work crafting Board Committee and related Charters, corporate-level and entity-specific policies and procedures, Codes of Conduct, and other foundational documents.
Susan has a Master’s in Public Administration and a Juris Doctorate. She is actively licensed to practice law in Washington, D.C. Susan is certified in Healthcare Compliance, and has authored 3 books, one novel and two compliance training books, one of which will be published in 2019.