ANSWERS TO YOUR INDUSTRY QUESTIONS How do you determine if your employees adhere to your company's business ethics and compliance policies?

COMPANIES CONSIDERING DEVELOPING a corporate compliance and integrity plan or evaluating an existing one can begin with a short, focused employee questionnaire that allows for anonymous responses. The following questions can start the process:

During the past 12 months, have you been involved in a transaction in which you had to consult (or considered consulting) your supervisor about the application of the company's business ethics policies? If so, did you do so, and did your supervisor provide advice consistent with your understanding of the policy? If you did not consult your supervisor, why didn't you?

Are you familiar with your company's business ethics policies? If so, has your company acted in compliance with these policies? If not, briefly describe the conduct and how you handled it.

Have you met with competitors socially or elsewhere, or communicated with them by telephone or e-mail during the past year? If so, have you discussed any of the following matters: pricing, including discounts and sales programs; specific customers or groups of customers; or information about the company that you believe might not be available to the general public?

During the past year, have you submitted an expense report or similar expense authorization to entertain referral sources or to sponsor an event they attended at the company's expense? If the answer is yes and the referral source's share of the expense was in excess of $50, identify the event and the business purpose of the expense. Are there types of business expenses that are allowable for salespeople at other companies but not for you because of your company's business ethics policies? If so, describe them. Are all of your expenses reported accurately to the company? Have you been t old or encouraged to report expenses in a manner you find misleading or that otherwise did not make sense to you? Have you or any of your colleagues been offered money, gifts, trips or anything else of value to encourage you to offer or accept more favorable terms or otherwise try to compromise your loyalty to the company? If so, what was your response? Did you report this offer to your supervisor? Did you report it to an official at your customer's company?

Are you provided sufficient information regarding the approved uses, prices (including permissible discounts) and availability of the products and therapies you are selling in order to represent these items effectively and honestly?

Is the company living up to its corporate business ethics policies? Are there things the company could do better?

While it would be naive to expect all employees to have sufficient trust to answer all questions honestly, their answers should identify any need for a more systematic inquiry.

Answered by Corrine Parver, partner, Health Law Services Practice, Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky LLP, Washington; 202/775-4728; e-mail: ParverC@dsmo.com.

If you have an industry question you'd like answered by an industry expert, contact Tiffany Kobashigawa at HomeCare magazine, 23815 Stuart Ranch Road, P.O. Box 8987, Malibu, CA 90265-8987; 800/543-4116, 310/317-4522, ext. 268; fax: 310/317-0264; e-mail: tiffany_kobashigawa@intertec.com.