When the safety of patients is at stake, the law discourages heads in the sand. To the contrary, federal and state laws encourage employees and agents of healthcare organizations - and even their patients - to step forward and report quality of care concerns or potential noncompliance with laws and regulations. Under the law, even a "toxic" employee's petulant griping could constitute protected whistleblowing activity if it concerns patient care or billing payors.

Too often healthcare organizations fail to recognize whistleblowing activity and make missteps in their dealings with the putative whistleblower, even where the whistleblower's intentions are not pure. This can give rise to liability for unlawful retaliation. Numerous state and federal laws impose liability on organizations and their leadership when they take any adverse action against the person raising the concern if it can be shown that the adverse action would not have been taken but for the person stepping forward. In some cases, the law will presume retaliation if the adverse action occurs within a certain amount of time after the concern was raised.

This session aims to identify protected whistleblowing activity and provide participants with an understanding of the laws that punish retaliation so they can effectively improve patient care while not becoming victims of conniving opportunists.