Organizational Code of Conduct

Since Life Recovery Center employs providers and practitioners from a variety of disciplines, it is the expectation of the organization that every service provider will act and operate in a manner consistent with the Code of Ethics of his/her respective discipline. If a service provider is not legally, ethically, or otherwise bound by a specific Code of Ethics, Life Recovery Center will expect that he/she will provide treatment services in strict accordance with the LRC Employee Code of Conduct and the following guiding principles:

 

Professional Conduct

• Personnel will respect the rights of persons served by demonstrating full integration of the guidelines contained in the Client Rights and Responsibilities Policy. This includes the right of the consumer to make autonomous decisions and fully participate in every aspect of the service delivery process.

• Personnel will provide services in a manner that fully respects the confidentiality of consumers, by demonstrating a functional knowledge of confidentiality policies and guidelines. Personnel will be fair and honest in their work. They will not exploit, mislead, or violate the rights of persons served.  All personnel will be faithful to their contractual obligations, professional boundaries, corporate responsibilities, and their word.

• To prevent and avoid unethical conduct, personnel will consult with, refer to, and participate in supervision or treatment team meetings with other professionals.

• Personnel will clarify their professional role or license details, training and experience, treatment obligations, and be accountable for upholding professional standards of practice.

 

Personal/Professional Conduct

• All prior personal relationships between staff and persons engaging in services shall be disclosed by personnel and may be subject to review by an appropriate supervisor.

• Personnel will limit relationships with persons served to their defined professional roles.

• Personnel will not establish ongoing personal or business relationships with consumers receiving services.

• Personnel will conduct themselves in a professional, ethical, and moral manner based on the values of the organization.

• Sexual relationships between personnel and persons served are never appropriate. Sexual relationships include, but are not limited to the following: engaging in any type of sexual activity, flirting, advances and/or propositions of a sexual nature, comments of a sexual nature about an individual’s body, clothing, or lewd sexually suggestive comments.

• Personnel will not accept gifts of value from a consumer, family member, or stakeholder, and cannot accept personal favors or benefits that may be reasonably construed as influencing their conduct or creating an imbalance of power.

• Personnel will not take, borrow or remove agency property or personal property not belonging to them from the agency without the permission of the property owner.

• Personnel will not solicit persons served for personal causes including but not limited to soliciting funds for a personal or community cause, political fundraising, selling candy and cookies for their children, friend’s children or other such fundraising items for the personnel’s children.

• Life Recovery Center does not engage in organizational fundraising.

• Personnel involved with clinical care will not serve as a witness of any document for that client including but not limited to:  power of attorney, advance directives, or guardianship. 

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Business Practices

• Life Recovery Center will utilize the Corporate Compliance Officer (or designated staff) to ensure that it conducts business in an ethical manner and ensure that any business practices that are questionable are thoroughly investigated utilizing the investigation procedures outlined below:

  1. All financial practices, facility development, information technology, advocacy efforts, corporate citizenship, and data collection and management practices shall comply with local, state, and federal law and guidelines.  They will align with standard operations for the field.

  2. All personnel shall adhere to Life Recovery Center’s Workforce Development and Management Policies and Procedures.

 

Marketing Practices

• Life Recovery Center will conduct marketing practices in an honest and factual manner. Marketing materials and practices will in no way mislead the public or misrepresent Life Recovery Center’s services, providers, contracts, or capabilities.

• Life Recovery Center will not claim any service outcomes unless represented by reliable data collection methods and valid research results.

• Life Recovery Center will utilize clear and consistent methods of communicating information to consumers, family members, third-party entities, referral sources, funding sources, and community members, and will exhibit sensitivity to the educational and cultural considerations when distributing information.

• Life Recovery Center will not utilize monetary rewards or gifts to any potential consumer of services to entice them to enter programs.

 

Clinical Practices

• Personnel will adhere to all professional codes of conduct and ethical standards for specified professional discipline as well as any other professional certification or job description.

• Professional boundaries are to be utilized in all business that is related to the organization.

• As part of orientation, personnel and other stakeholders will read the Ethical Codes of Conduct and demonstrate knowledge of the guidelines as evidenced by proper administrative documentation, following policies and procedures, participation in training or continuing education for organization and professional requirements, and conformance to the clinical standards.

 

Quality of Care

• Life Recovery Center will provide quality behavioral health care in a manner that is appropriate, determined to be necessary, efficient, and effective.

• Health care professionals will follow current ethical standards regarding communication with consumers (and their representatives) regarding the services provided.

• Life Recovery Center will inform consumers about alternatives and risks associated with the care they are seeking and obtain informed consent prior to any clinical interventions.

• Life Recovery Center recognizes the right of consumers to make choices about their own care, including the right to go without recommended care or to refuse care.

 

Necessity of Care

• Life Recovery Center shall submit claims for payment to governmental, private, or individual payers for those services or items that are clinically necessary and appropriate.

• When providing services, Life Recovery Center personnel shall only provide those services that are consistent with generally accepted standards for treatment and are determined by the professional to be clinically necessary and appropriate.

• Service providers may determine that services are clinically necessary or appropriate; however, the funding source may not cover or approve those services. In such a case, the consumer may request the submission of a claim for the services to protect their rights with respect to those services or to determine the extent of coverage provided by the payer.

• Coding and documentation will be consistent with the standards and practices defined by the organization in its policy, procedures, and guidelines.

 

Coding, Billing, and Accounting

• Life Recovery Center personnel involved in coding, billing, documentation, and accounting for consumer care services for governmental, private or individual payers will comply with all applicable state and federal regulations and organizational policies and procedures.  Training will be provided as needed.

• Life Recovery Center will only bill for services rendered and shall seek the amount to which is contracted.

• Supporting clinical documentation will be prepared for all services rendered. If the appropriate and required documentation has not been provided, then the service has not been rendered.

• All services must be accurately and completely coded and submitted to the appropriate payer in accordance with applicable regulations, laws, contracts, and organizational policies and procedures. Federal and state regulations take precedence, and organizational policies and procedures must reflect those regulations.

• If a billing or coding error occurs, documentation must be logged and properly corrected.  Appropriate documentation will be reported to proper authorities and action will be taken according to corporate compliance standards.

• Consumers shall be consistently and uniformly charged, and government payers shall not be charged more than the provider’s usual charges.

• Billing and collections will be recorded in the appropriated accounts and proper review will occur.

• An accurate and timely billing structure and medical records system will ensure that Life Recovery Center effectively implements and complies with required policies and procedures.

 

Cost Reports

• Designated staff will ensure that all preparation and cost reports submitted to governmental and private organizations are properly prepared and documented according to all applicable federal and state laws.

• All cost reports will be submitted and prepared with all costs properly classified, allocated to the correct cost centers, and supported by verifiable and auditable cost data.

• All cost report preparation or submission errors and mistakes will be corrected in a timely manner and, if necessary, clarify procedures and educate personnel to prevent or minimize the recurrence of those errors.

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Personal and Confidential Information

• Life Recovery Center will protect personal and confidential information concerning the organization’s system, personnel, and consumers.

• Life Recovery Center personnel shall not disclose confidential consumer information unless at the consumer’s request and/or when authorized by law.  Appropriate consent for the use of consumer information for research purposes must be obtained with full disclosure regarding research purpose and use.

• Confidential information will only be discussed with or disclosed to persons and entities outside the organization through the request of the consumer. Third-party disclosures are not allowed.  Persons outside the organization include the family, business, or social acquaintances of the consumer.

• Consumers can request and are entitled to receive copies or summaries of their records except for minors and consumers being treated for alcohol and drug abuse, who may be provided with copies of their records if it is judged appropriate by the provider charged with their care.

• Personnel will be familiar with all organizational policies and procedures regarding confidentiality, record keeping, and traveling with documentation, as appropriate.

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Creation and Retention of Records

• All records are the property of the organization. Personnel shall not destroy or remove records from the premises.

• Respective staff responsible for the preparation of records shall ensure they are accurately prepared, maintained in a lawful manner, and reside in a location as prescribed by law and policy.

• Personnel will not knowingly create records that contain any false, fraudulent, fictitious, deceptive, or misleading information.  Personnel will not sign someone else’s signature or initials on a record.  Appropriate clinical language and documentation is always to be used.

• Personnel will not delete any entry from a record. Records can be amended and material added to ensure the accuracy of a record in accordance with policy and procedures. If a record is amended, it must indicate that the notation is an addition (or correction) and document the actual date the additional entry was made.

• The organization maintains record retention and destruction policies and procedures consistent with federal and state requirements. Premature destruction of records could be misinterpreted as an effort to destroy evidence or hide information.

 

Government Investigation

• Life Recovery Center personnel shall cooperate fully with appropriately authorized governmental investigations and audits.

• Life Recovery Center will respond in an orderly fashion to the government’s request for information through interviews and documentation review.

• Life Recovery Center will respond to the government’s request for information in a manner that enables the organization to protect both the organization's and consumers' interests while cooperating fully with the investigation.

• When a representative from a federal or state agency contacts Life Recovery Center personnel at home or at their office for information regarding the organization or any other entity with which the organization does business, the individual will contact the Executive Director immediately. If the Executive Director is not available, the individual will contact the next appropriate staff member.

• Life Recovery Center personnel will ask to see the government representative’s identification and business card if the government representative presents in person. Otherwise, personnel should ask for the person's name, office, address, phone number, and identification number and then contact the person’s office to confirm identity.

 

Prevention of Improper Referrals or Payments

• Personnel will not accept, for themselves or for the organization, anything of value in exchange for referrals of business or the referral of consumers.

• Personnel will not offer, for themselves or for the organization, anything of value in exchange for referrals of business or the referral of consumers.

• Federal law prohibits anyone from offering anything of value to a Medicare or Medicaid consumer that is likely to influence that person’s decision to select or receive care from a behavioral health care provider.

• The organization shall establish procedures for the review of all pricing and discounting decisions to ensure that appropriate factors have been considered and that the basis for such arrangements is documented.

• Development or initiation of joint ventures, partnerships, and corporations within the organization must be reviewed and approved by appropriate management to ensure compliance with organizational policy and federal regulations.

 

Antitrust Regulations

• Personnel will comply with all applicable federal and state antitrust laws.

• Personnel shall not agree with a competitor to artificially set prices or salaries, divide markets, restrict service output, block new competitors from the market, or share pricing information that is not normally available to the public. 

• Personnel shall not deny privileges to qualified practitioners or agree to participate with competitors in a boycott of government programs, insurance companies, pharmaceutical drugs, or other products.

 

All clients will be briefed on the organizational code of conduct as part of client orientation.

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