Anonymous -- MN

Your approach to whistleblower makes the obviously false assumption that the organization will respond appropriately to complaints when all the data suggests that is the least likely outcome. If you're going to propose a new approach to deal with whistleblower retaliation then you need to have consequences for those that retaliate. Research shows that most individuals do not believe that anonymous complaint hotlines are really anonymous and framkly why would anyone believe that they are when there is no oversight of anonymous complaint hotlines. In reality, the hotline is just another way to intimidate people from not reporting to protect corrupt hospitals from individuals who report fraud directly to the compliance officer. Your approach is simply a subversion of recent revisions in the law which hold compliance officers accountable if an employee reports fraud to them. Your approach is not only a step backwards, I would suggest that it may be a violation of corporate compliance laws which state that a person must be identified within the organization that individuals can report fraud too. If you want to help, instead of hurt I would suggest adding penalties for those who retaliate. In reality, most acts of retaliation violate criminal laws relating to threats, coecerion, intimidation, harassment criminal defamation, etc. ... Enforcing existing laws would provide a genuine incentive for individuals to believe they can actually report fraud. All it would take would be for a couple of compliance officers to go jail and you'd have you dramatically increase compliance. Going to jail is a much stronger incentive then financial incentives which typically have don't penalize the retaliator. They only penalize the organization. Deterrence begins with penalizing the retaliator, not protecting them through hotlines.