In a compliance program, what does auditing and monitoring help ensure?

Auditing and monitoring play a crucial role in maintaining a compliance program by ensuring continuous adherence to compliance standards. This process involves systematically checking and evaluating the organization's practices and procedures against established policies, regulations, and ethical benchmarks. By conducting regular audits and monitoring operations, an organization can identify areas of non-compliance, address weaknesses, and implement corrective actions, fostering a culture of accountability.

This ongoing vigilance helps organizations stay up-to-date with changing regulations and standards, ensuring that all practices remain compliant over time. The focus is not only on meeting initial compliance requirements but also on sustaining those standards to prevent violations and safeguard the organization against potential risks and penalties.

While the other options represent significant aspects of healthcare operations, they do not encapsulate the primary focus of auditing and monitoring in a compliance context. For example, compliance entails adherence to multiple regulatory frameworks, not just federal ones, and operational efficiencies or financial outcomes, while important, are not direct objectives of compliance auditing and monitoring.