Richard Williams

Richard is a founding member and Protiviti's Global Healthcare Practice Leader and Global Lead for Pharma and Life Sciences. He has extensive experience providing operational, financial, and regulatory consulting and internal audit services to the healthcare industry. In addition to leading numerous business performance improvement and risk management initiatives, Richard has experience serving in roles such as Chief Audit Executive and Chief Compliance Officer for large integrated healthcare delivery systems. Prior to joining Protiviti, Richard was a Project Manager at Arthur Andersen and provided internal audit and business and technology risk consulting services to healthcare clients. Richard is a frequent speaker on internal audit, compliance, and revenue improvement initiatives.

Major Projects

• Directed multiple internal audit functions for acute and long-term care hospital systems, surgery center ventures, hospital management companies, and health insurance plans, which included performing a variety of control and business improvement projects. Reviews have focused on all aspects of operations. Examples include finance and accounting control assessments, enterprise risk assessments, clinical and revenue operations assessments, pharmacy and drug diversion reviews, construction and real estate program assessments, financial statement audits, vendor and payer contract compliance reviews, clinical trials and IRB compliance audits, accounts payable/materials management control reviews, electronic health record and patient accounting implementation/operational reviews (Epic, Cerner, Siemens, McKesson, Meditech, etc.), payroll, IT general control reviews, and a variety acquisition/integration assessments and oversight.
• Directed numerous regulatory compliance assessments, process improvement projects, and program turnarounds, including those related to HIPAA, CMS Medicare Managed Care rules, Stark laws, physician contracting and property leasing, clinical coding, research, government reimbursement, OIG and OCR resolutions, program effectiveness assessments, etc.
• Directed and advised on the implementation of ERM programs across large integrated delivery systems.
• Directed numerous revenue cycle improvement and transformation programs for both existing and integration operations across access charge capture, care management, billing, collections, denials management, and payment accuracy functions. Key activities included identifying and implementing process and system improvements across multiple patient care, finance, and revenue departments and achieving significant benefits in net revenue and sustainable cash, cash collected as a percentage of revenue, and reduction in A/R days.
• Directed finance transformation and financial controls improvement projects for providers and health plans. Examples include A/P shared services, enrollment, contracting, claims processing, financial recovery, reserves, premium revenue, financial reporting, commissions, payments, etc. Directed numerous projects for large health plans and managed services organisation. Projects included planning and/or execution of a project risk management office for a large scale claims system implementation, provider connectivity strategies, and risk management for a health information exchange implementation. Directed numerous Sarbanes-Oxley internal control documentation, evaluation, and testing programs. Projects included performing entity level risk assessments, prioritising financial statement elements and business processes, and performing internal control analyses of key IT, financial reporting, and operational processes.

Areas of Expertise

• Internal Audit
• Revenue Cycle
• Regulatory Compliance
• Enterprise Risk Management
• EHR Implementation Risk Management
• Quality & Value Based Care
• Information Security
• Third Party Risk
• Transformation and Integration

Industry Experience

• Physician Groups/Specialties
• Hospitals (academic/acute/post-acute)
• Payers

Education

• Master in Business Administration in Accounting and Information Systems
• Bachelor of Arts, Accounting

Professional Memberships and Certifications

• Project Management Professional
• Internal Audit Accreditation in Quality Assessment and Validation
• Certified Healthcare Internal Audit ProfessionalCM (CHIAPCM)
• Institute of Internal Auditors
• Health Care Compliance Association
• Healthcare Financial Management Association
• Association of Healthcare Internal Auditors
• Project Management Institute

Richard Williams is among the first to achieve the designation of Certified Healthcare Internal Audit ProfessionalCM, the only healthcare specific internal audit certification, from the Association of Healthcare Internal Auditors (AHIA). AHIA developed the CHIAPCM certification to recognise auditors whose proficiency in healthcare specific auditing functions and commitment to excellence sets them apart in the field of healthcare internal auditing.