Category: Medical Background Checks

Healthcare organizations play a crucial role in every community: to promote health and prevent diseases. For this reason, hiring individuals with healthcare sanctions can jeopardize their operations.

If you want to protect your institution from unnecessary risks and liability, we recommend outsourcing medical background check services as part of your pre-employment process. Doing so ensures you don’t endanger your federal funding or accreditation.

This article will discuss how essential healthcare background checking services are to the healthcare industry. Read on to enhance your compliance efforts.

What Is a Healthcare Sanctions Background Check?

As the name suggests, a healthcare sanctions background check inspects various regulatory and governmental databases to identify individuals prohibited from working in healthcare. In most cases, regulatory bodies have convicted or disciplined these people for performing criminal or unethical acts.

At HR Preferred, we search over 1,000 reliable sources for penalties, suspensions, or disciplinary actions, including the following:

• Federal HHS OIG Exclusion
• System for Award Management (SAM)
• Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC)

Through our medical background check services, you can determine which applicants pose an unacceptable risk level to your organization and patients.

Advantages of Running a Healthcare Sanctions Background Check

Are healthcare background checking services worth the investment? Below are some advantages of hiring a reliable agency.

Enhance Patient Safety

The primary reason to run healthcare sanctions background checks is to identify individuals that pose a safety risk to patients. Remember, these professionals might have issues with drug theft, neglect, and criminal convictions. Doing so reduces the chance of malpractice and abuse.

Maintain Federal Funding Eligibility

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services prohibits federally funded healthcare organizations from hiring sanctioned individuals. For this reason, running healthcare sanctions background checks is crucial in maintaining federal funding eligibility, including Medicare and Medicaid.

Improve Compliance Efforts

When your screening activities comply with federal and state laws, you protect the institution from unnecessary threats, including massive fines. According to 42 CFR 1003. 102(a)(2), you can be liable for as much as $10,000 every day a sanctioned individual works inside your premises.

Work With a Reputable Background Check Provider Now

Some healthcare organizations prefer a do-it-yourself (DIY) technique in their sanctions screening activities. They might search for details about applicants and employees from multiple databases and licensing boards.

However, this tedious process can take a lot of time and not provide complete information about an individual. In the end, a DIY strategy may still lead to hiring sanctioned individuals.

Instead, you should hire experienced medical background check services like HR Preferred. We can help you make more informed decisions about a potential employee as quickly as possible.

Apart from healthcare background checking services, we also offer criminal records check, driving record investigation as well as license verification. Call us at (855) 240-9544 now for a free, no-obligation quotation.

The healthcare industry is one of the fastest-paced industries with a high demand for workers. As a result, it requires employers to take special contemplation and consideration to make sure they are hiring the right candidates.

One of the best ways to determine a great candidate is through a medical background check.

What Is a Medical Background Check?

Medical background checks are crucial for all healthcare facilities as they enable hiring managers to assess an applicant’s credentials, job experience, and background to decide whether they are qualified for the position. Medical background checks examine criteria specifically created to assist employers in finding the best caregivers and are more comprehensive than other types of background checks to compare candidates.

Medical background checks are the process of searching through the list of hundreds of reliable U.S. sources and databases that will show results of disciplinary data and let the employer know if the applicant is prohibited from participating in health care programs. As an employer, medical background checks provide you access to findings and results, including letters of reprimand or full exclusions.

A medical background check will help employers:

• Confirm that potential employees are qualified for their tasks
• Defend patients and other staff members from potential danger
• Reduce the risk of being held liable for irresponsible hiring
• Promote transparency in the hiring process
• Confirm that present employees haven’t committed any ineligible offenses since being hired
• Ensure that licensed professionals maintain active licenses

Importance of Medical Background Checks

Medical background checks for employers are crucial because healthcare personnel is trusted to take care of patients who are unable to take care of themselves. You need to be able to ensure they are qualified, safe, and responsible. Therefore, a medical background check enables you to select the ideal candidate.

Verify Identity

Medical background checks for employers will verify that your candidate is who they claim to be on their resume and during the interview. This also includes their previous jobs, positions, and education.

Search the National Criminal Database

A medical background check includes checking a nationwide criminal database to determine criminal records. This gives the employer the peace of mind that they are not hiring criminals or people with criminal histories who lied about it on their application or during the interview.

Drug Testing

Since prescription medications are frequently available to healthcare workers, a drug test is part of the medical background check to identify any potential risks and eliminate the risk of hiring someone with a drug problem.

Reputable Background Check Service Provider

Given how crucial a medical background check is for employers, working with a reputable and trustworthy background check service provider for your company is essential. Work with a background check partner who you can rely on and that values your company’s success.

HR Preferred is a top provider of medical background checks, assisting numerous businesses in selecting the ideal candidates for their open positions. Contact us today and unlock your candidate’s full potential in the safest, fastest, and easiest way possible.

The OIG exclusions list contains information regarding entities and individuals currently exempted or excluded from participating in healthcare programs. It started in 1977 when the federal government of the United States first issued a list of providers who were excluded from receiving federal government payments due to committing violations.

Managed by the Officer of the Inspector General (OIG) at Health and Human Services (HHS), the database for compliance for healthcare organizations is currently known as the List of Excluded Individuals/Entities (LEIE).

How Do You Get On the OIG Exclusion List

An entity or individual may end up on the OIG exclusion list for various reasons. This is the most severe sanction the civil authorities can impose based on a criminal conviction. Hiring an excluded entity or individual results in non-payment for supplies or services rendered to a patient covered under a funded healthcare program since they have disregarded the law and standards for professional conduct.

The Two Main Types of  OIG Exclusions

1. Mandatory

The OIG Exclusions List are enforced by law. They require the OIG to exclude entities and individuals for a minimum of 5 years upon being convicted of a felony offense such as fraud related to a state’s healthcare program, patient negligence or abuse, or unlawful manufacture of controlled substances. The second criminal offense calls for 10 years of mandatory exclusion, while the third conviction results in permanent exclusion.

2. Permissive

On the other hand, permissive exclusions give OIG discretion when imposing or deciding on the term of exclusion as the offenses registered are on a misdemeanor level. This is largely reported as theft, embezzlement, misconduct, breach of responsibility, or fraud relating to any healthcare item or service.

Sign Up for Preferred Healthcare Searches with HR Preferred

HR Preferred is an employment verification service provider that offers preferred healthcare searches check to healthcare clients to safeguard them against payment recoupments and civil monetary penalties. With federal and state OIG exclusions, it’s easier for employers to ensure they aren’t hiring an unlicensed or excluded individual. The application is constructed over two portals: (1) the employer portal to help you create position-based screening packages, and (2) the candidate portal for online applications. With the use of dedicated services, namely address history search services for employers, county criminal search services, multi-state criminal records search, federal criminal record search for employment, employment verification services, education verification services online, preferred healthcare searches check, MVR driving history report, and drug testing service for employers, HR Preferred cuts short the time required for hiring. We follow up with adverse action notification and i9 & E-Verify fulfillment services to ensure you only hire the best of candidates.

The only way for employers to ensure that they’re hiring the right candidate as a physician or nurse is to run pre-employment background checks. This serves as a guarantee that the facility will not encounter problems with the employee at a later date.

Running healthcare background checks for employers encourages honesty during the hiring process, verifies that the applicant is qualified for the harm, saves patients from potential harm, and ensures that the professional holds a valid license. Although the requirements of each healthcare background check may vary, they must include three important checks for healthcare professionals:

1. Criminal Search

Research conducted by the DHHS OIG found 19 percent of nurses guilty of neglect, abuse, and misappropriation. A major chunk of this number had prior convictions for theft and other offenses against persons. A criminal search taps into a database to locate criminal records from various jurisdictions registered against the person.

2. Sex Offender Search

Did you know there are more than 500,000 sex offenders in the United States? Since physicians and nurses come in contact with patients frequently, it’s important to run the sex offender search as well to identify any applicants who have pleaded guilty to a sex crime previously.

3. Drug Screening

Because physicians and nurses have access to some of the most powerful drugs, the employer must ensure that they were not previously held with charges for substance abuse. Drug screening reveals most of the habits of the applicant, which may lead to disqualification from a position in the healthcare industry.

The HR Preferred Difference for Healthcare Background Checking Services

HR Preferred is your trusted employment background screening services that allows companies to unlock their applicant’s truest potential before hiring. We’re an employment background service that runs preferred healthcare searches check, among other healthcare background checking services, in record time to reduce the time needed for onboarding physicians and nurses on your end. The application is customizable as it integrates advanced technology and compliance to offer two functional portals: (1) an employer portal that creates position-based screening packages and (2) a candidate portal for online application and completion of background checks.

Sign up for dedicated background checks for ambulance companies.

Other Services Provided at HR Preferred apart from Healthcare Background Checks

HR Preferred is designed and validated by FCRA experts to provide dedicated background check services, including address history search, county criminal search services, multi-state record search, federal criminal record search for employment, employment verification, education verification services online, preferred healthcare searches, MVR driving history report, drug screening, adverse action notification fulfillment services, and i9 & E-Verify fulfillment services.