Compliance

With the ongoing regulatory scrutiny and media coverage criticizing how employment background checks can keep ex-offenders from getting jobs, it’s almost easy these days to overlook the most basic of notions—that background checks provide an essential benefit to employers, co-workers, customers, and patients. As the title of a recent conference hosted at the U.S.

As PreCheck’s Principal Consultant for Sanction Screening, I work with healthcare compliance officers every day to protect their facilities from excluded individuals and entities. With over ten years conducting sanction checks, I’ve seen dozens of scenarios and have helped clients identify physicians, employees and vendors who have been excluded from participating in federal health programs.

On February 4, 2014, PreCheck hosted a webinar presented by Vice President of Compliance, Vu Do, covering 5 background screening best practices for HR. Background screening practices have been placed under increased scrutiny from regulators and it's imperative that healthcare employers have a proactive process in place to mitigate risk and avoid monetary panelaties. This info-packed session can help HR objectively establish or modify employment screening programs to meet industry guidleines. 

Topics Covered in February's Background Check Webinar:

On December 8, 2013, the USCIS released three revised Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs) for users of E-Verify. The MOU is the legal document describing the agreement between the Department of Homeland Security and the entity requesting participation in E-Verify. Different versions are available on the USCIS website, based on the employer’s access method.

At PreCheck, we’ve noticed that a large number of our healthcare clients have initiatives in place for creating a smoke-free workplace environment. After all, isn’t it reasonable for patients to expect to be treated at a hospital that is free of secondhand smoke? Secondhand smoke is considered a serious health hazard by the American Lung Association and is estimated to cause about 50,000 deaths each year. According to a 2001 study by researchers Halpern et al.

This past weekend, I travelled to Phoenix, Arizona with my colleague Vu Do, PreCheck’s Vice President of Compliance, to participate in the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS) tenth anniversary annual conference.  The conference not only covered the evolution of the association but also the background screening profession as well. The following are just a few of my selections from the conference I thought might be of particular interest to employers and our readers.

On July 10, 2013, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) announced an upgrade to its Exclusions Search along with the July 2013 List of Excluded Individuals and Entities (LEIE) update. This isn’t the only recent change to this exclusion list. In June 2013, the OIG added new information to the list: the National Provider Identifier, a Waiver, and a Waiver State. With last month’s changes, the OIG released a redesigned exclusions search of the LEIE as well as the upgraded Online Exclusions Database and the LEIE Downloadable Databases. But what do these changes mean for you as an employer?

Colorado’s restriction against employers’ use of credit reports for employment purposes goes into effect on July 1, 2013. Colorado is the ninth state to restrict employers’ use of credit checks in hiring and retention decisions and follows California, Maryland, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Oregon, Vermont and Washington, which have all passed similar legislation.

Last summer, I reviewed a couple of states' social media legislation regarding sex offenders. 2013, however, has seen a fast-moving trend in state-level social media laws that directly affect employers. Arkansas, Colorado and Washington are the latest states to implement workplace social media privacy laws this past April and May. As of June 5, 2013, there are nine states with social media workplace privacy laws in place, which also include Maryland, Illinois, California, Michigan, Utah, and New Mexico.

On September 30, 1999 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Department of Inspector General released a Special Advisory Bulletin on The Effect of Exclusion from Participation in Federal Health Care Programs. The brief document set off a deluge of questions and requests for clarification on critical policy guidelines in the fourteen years following its release.