By Kelly A. Briganti, Editorial Director, G2 Intelligence
Just in time for budget season, the Health Care Compliance Association has released a report demonstrating the resources health care organizations are devoting to their compliance programs. The report summarizes results of a survey regarding compensation for chief compliance officers and compliance staff but includes related information that is equally revealing about the compliance programs as well.
“The salary data shows that the compliance profession is strong and growing stronger every year,” according to Roy Snell, HCCA’s chief executive officer. “Compensation reflects the growing stature of compliance and its importance to the health industry.” The survey gathered data regarding compensation, title, the organization’s size—in terms of revenue and number of employees, type of organization, geographic region, scope of CCO’s role, and certification or professional credentials of compliance staff, and other details relating to the surveyed organizations. CCOs earning the higher salaries were those at larger organizations and academic health care providers and those with compliance certification or professional compliance credentials.
Chief compliance officers for organizations with annual revenue exceeding $3 billion earned an average of nearly $300,000 annually. Smaller organizations earning below $5 million in revenue averaged almost $90,000 for CCO compensation. Compliance professionals at academic entities earned $191,423 on average, the highest average cash compensation—just beating out CCO compensation at publicly traded companies which averaged $187,832. The survey also revealed longevity is common in the compliance role—the “typical CCO” helmed their organization’s compliance functions for six to ten years or more. The survey report is available on HCCA’s website.