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What Is a Medical Compliance Specialist for Physicians?

Medical compliance specialists are a small subset of the medical field. With rising health care costs and malpractice insurance claims, however, this field is set for expansion. Medical compliance specialists perform a variety of duties to help ensure patient safety.

  1. Job Duties

    • Medical compliance specialists work with physicians to determine if the clinical and nonclinical staff members are following all necessary procedures. The compliance specialist will have experience with the regulations governing medical practices, ranging from OSHA's health safety guidelines to HIPAA's privacy requirements, and can help determine any areas that need improvement.

    Education

    • Medical compliance specialists who work with physicians have a range of backgrounds. Some have associate degrees or bachelor's degrees in medical billing or terminology or business-related fields. Others start working in the medical field and gain sufficient knowledge to monitor compliance.

    Prevalence

    • The Bureau of Labor Statistic's Occupational Outlook Handbook reports that about 78 percent of medical compliance specialists work for private doctors. The remaining one-fifth work for government agencies. In 2008, only about 10,000 of these jobs existed in the entire United States. However, the BLS evaluation of this field shows rapid growth through at least 2014.

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