The Importance of Background Checks in Healthcare

Healthcare is a high-stakes industry that requires exceptional skill, judgment, discretion, and attention to detail. Especially with sensitive data and vulnerable patients, hospitals need to hire qualified, responsible, and trustworthy employees.

Background checks are crucial to any organization but essential for healthcare companies. Healthcare screenings vary in complexity based on role but generally include criminal and verification checks for professional licenses and employment.

Employment History and Education Verification

Whether you’re a doctor, nurse, or other healthcare professional, your patients deserve to be in the hands of an honest and trustworthy professional. Unfortunately, some medical professionals have been known to be dishonest or reckless, while others have lied about their credentials or background.

As a result, thorough background checks are imperative in the medical field to ensure patient safety. These checks can verify a healthcare worker’s criminal record at the local, state, and federal levels, as well as their educational history, licensing boards, previous employers, and professional associations.

Another aspect of background checks specific to the healthcare industry is a sanctions check, which verifies that no federally sanctioned individuals are employed at the hospital or healthcare entity. This is particularly important because hospitals and other healthcare entities that receive Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement are subject to onerous fines if they hire an individual on the OIG or GSA exclusion list.

Although a nationwide shortage of nurses could cause some organizations to lower their employee screening standards, healthcare facilities must maintain their due diligence when vetting new hires. By doing so, they can reduce their risk of negligent hiring lawsuits and the potential injuries that could arise. Using a professional screening company is an effective way to ensure compliance and get the most accurate information possible.

Drug Screenings

As a healthcare organization, you are responsible for vetting your employees and maintaining compliance with federal, state, and local regulations, requirements, and laws. With an industry as complex and rapidly changing as healthcare, the proper checks can save you time, money, and resources.

Healthcare background check is tailored to the medical field and can vary in complexity based on the position for which a candidate is applying. They typically cover criminal history, education and employment, professional licenses, driving records (for ambulance drivers), sex offender status, and any other relevant metrics for the position for which a candidate is applying.

Performing drug screenings for all healthcare employees, from receptionists to custodians, is essential to creating a safe work environment. In addition to protecting your patients, these checks can help you avoid costly accidents or mistakes from someone under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

In an industry where trust is paramount, ensuring that your healthcare employees are clean-cut and free of any red flags can go a long way in building and rebuilding patient confidence in your practice. Not to mention, if an employee is found to violate any state or federal healthcare-related laws or regulations, it could lead to fines, reprimands, and possibly even lawsuits.

Professional Licenses

Healthcare background checks vary in complexity based on the position a company is hiring for. For example, a physician requires a more thorough check than a nurse or medical assistant. 

Healthcare workers should place a high value on patient safety, privacy, and dignity. They must also be competent, knowledgeable, and have integrity. Yet many healthcare employees – from nurses to custodians – do not always place these values in practice. Many healthcare fraud cases stem from incompetent practitioners who slipped through the cracks due to negligent hiring.

The best way to avoid such pitfalls is to ensure that all new hires are genuinely who they say they are. Identity verification checks help employers verify that each applicant is who they claim to be on their resume and during interviews. It also helps weed out applicants with criminal records who may have lied on their applications or interviews.

Sanctions checks, which are specific to the medical industry, are another essential healthcare background check. These checks help employers avoid federal fines levied against them for Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement violations. 

Sanctions Check

A healthcare background check goes beyond criminal checks to include verifications of education, employment history, and professional license status. This allows companies to ensure that job candidates and employees are not on government employment-ban lists preventing them from participating in Medicare or other regulated federal healthcare programs. This is a good business practice and the law in some cases.

Healthcare professionals often work in a highly clinical setting, directly in contact with patients and their families. That makes it more critical than ever to ensure the safety of those patients and their loved ones by preventing healthcare professionals with violent, theft, or fraud convictions from entering these sensitive environments. In addition, healthcare background checks can verify that a prospective employee is who they say they are by checking for records of past addresses and names to avoid hiring someone with a fraudulent identity.

As a high-stakes industry, healthcare requires a lot of skill, experience, discretion, and judgment from medical professionals. Patients expect to be treated by staff who are competent and ethical. A robust healthcare background check policy guards your organization against expensive monetary fines and malpractice lawsuits by ensuring that your staff members are not falsifying credentials, committing fraud or abuse, or engaging in any other unethical behavior that can derail the integrity of your patient-centered operations.

*This is a collaboration post