Leyla Erkan

Leyla is Protiviti’s Global Healthcare Compliance Practice Lead as well as the Central Region Healthcare Leader. Leyla has over 23 years of healthcare experience in acute and post-acute care settings with extensive experience in regulatory compliance, clinical research, HIPAA/HITECH, conflicts of interest, risk management, investigations, and governmental audit.  ​

Prior to joining Protiviti, Leyla served as the Chief Compliance, Research and Privacy Officer for the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, formally the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, the number one rehabilitation hospital in the nation, where she oversaw all compliance related matters for the hospital, research enterprise, physician practice and over 30 sites of care, including 5 strategic hospital alliances.  Prior to the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, Leyla was the Compliance Director and Privacy Officer for Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Leyla taught numerous courses on compliance and enforcement at Northwestern University and was an Institutional Review Board Member at Northwestern University.​

Major Projects

• Served as the Chief Compliance, Privacy and Research Officer for physician, accountable care, hospital and payer organizations. Provided strategic direction regarding staffing, hotline, policies and procedures, research compliance, training and education, coding/billing, risk assessments, compliance audit and project work plans. Directed hundreds of compliance-related audits. ​
• Developed compliance programs for acute and post-acute hospitals, biomedical, physician practices, laboratories, research institutions and home health. ​
• Served as the Human Protections Administrator and Responsible Conduct of Research Coordinator for a premier translational research hospital. ​
• Led a provider’s HIPAA/HITECH compliance review by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR); provider was selected to be part of the OCR’s Performance Audit Program. Developed and assessed over 500 documents for risk and compliance. No privacy findings issued.​
• Directed a two-year Medicare compliance inpatient rehabilitation facility pre-payment review, which comprised of 265 records, over $24,500,000 in charges and resulted in a success rate of 93%.  Created work-flows and implemented systems to manage and report on governmental (e.g., Recovery Auditors) and commercial insurance audit requests.​
• Served as interim Research Administrator for a premier translational research hospital, which included oversight of 10 professional and support staff, 300 studies and clinical trials with over $200 million in funding.​
• Created processes, policies and training for academic medical centers to track, evaluate and report on conflicts of interest (COI). Reviewed thousands of COI disclosures by researchers, management, executive leadership and board members for appropriateness.​
• Conducted various compliance revenue cycle risk assessments for coding, billing and reimbursement practices. Evaluated changes to or new revenue opportunities for compliance with requirements and government billing policies.​
• Led numerous and extensive investigations for large and small providers regarding research misconduct, claims billing, regulatory, conflicts of interest, privacy, identity theft, patient complaints and grievances and employee matters.​

Areas of Expertise​

• Regulatory Compliance​
• Privacy​
• Clinical Research Compliance

Industry Expertise

• Healthcare

Education​

• B.S. – Management and Information Systems, Purdue University​
• M.J. – Health Law, Loyola University of Chicago Law School​

Professional Memberships & Certifications​

• Certified in Healthcare Compliance (CHC)​
• Certified in Healthcare Privacy Compliance (CHPC)​
• Certified in Healthcare Research Compliance (CHRC)​
• Member, Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA)​
• Member, Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA)​
• Member, Association of Healthcare Internal Auditors (AHIA)​
• Institutional Review Board Member at Northwestern University (former)​
• Adjunct Professor, Northwestern University  – Compliance and Enforcement Courses (former)​