Challenges facing healthcare organizations today:

The IRS has initiated an aggressive campaign to review nonprofit executive compensation. They are continuing to review over 2,000 tax-exempt organizations by looking at Form 990 compliance and by conducting soft audits. Form 13790, a new compliance check questionnaire, asks for information about governance and executive compensation practices. Congress has conducted hearings on tax-exempt executive compensation and state attorneys general are exerting more authority over nonprofit organizations. The GAO has recently surveyed selected healthcare organizations regarding executive compensation governance. Many compensation and benefit programs common in nonprofits are being scrutinized and some are facing legislative or regulatory extinction.

Traditionally, boards and committees have been composed of volunteers who were quite willing to serve. Today our regulatory environment requires more time, oversight and accountability from board members, and even carries personal risks. For example, The Taxpayer Bill of Rights 2 imposes financial penalties on board members who fail to exercise proper fiduciary controls. As a result, finding new members with enough experience to do the job well may prove difficult and, even worse, current members may step down to avoid the heightened risks and demands.

In this climate, it is crucial for tax-exempt organizations to ensure their executive compensation programs comply with all laws and regulations and can be defended as reasonable. Escalating time commitments and potential liability for directors brings a need for tools to help the governing body carry out its duties.

Bringing the solution to you:

Integrated Healthcare Strategies has developed a Governance of Executive Compensation suite of services for this reason. The GEC is designed to provide your organization's governing body all of the guidance and tools necessary to create and oversee its executive total compensation programs. As an added service, GEC provides critical education for the members of the board or compensation committee. Three of our key products in this service line include our Governance of Executive Compensation (GEC) Manual and Support, Performance Evaluation Tools and Executive Compensation Plan Media Tool-Kit.

These tools were developed and designed to help provide organizations with proactive, systematic approaches to the issues and challenges they face on nearly a daily basis. But it takes more than just the tools alone. We work side-by-side with the organization to manage the performance appraisal process. We help develop the strategies on-site. We attend meetings and actively participate as trusted advisors to Boards and committees when our tools or processes are utilized.

We know this process works-because we ask. A critical step in our process is periodic follow up to determine the level of success and effectiveness of our services and recommended strategies. This added step is essential to assure success, and to continue to enrich the knowledge base and resources available to our clients in the future.