Criminal Background Checks

In May 2015, the U.S. Office of Inspector General (OIG) released the report, “Home Health Agencies Conducted Background Checks of Varying Types,” which contains key considerations for a sector of the healthcare industry that provides care, often unsupervised, to patients in their homes.

As we observe Healthcare Risk Management Week at PreCheck, I thought I would share five healthcare background screening tips to help your organization drive safe and trusted healthcare. As a healthcare background screening firm, protecting patient care as at the heart of our mission and the following list is by no means an exhaustive one. There are certainly more ways that you can mitigate risk through employment screening practices, but the following five best practices are a great way to start.

When it comes to employment background checks, there’s a lot that can go wrong. Most healthcare employers use background checks as part of their due diligence process to protect the safety of their patients and staff. With so much at stake, it’s important that healthcare employers have an effective and efficient background screening program. Putting together a thorough employment screening program can be challenging. My colleague Vu Do, Vice President of Compliance at PreCheck, offers the following four tips for improving your employment screening program.

When considering the best background screening partner as a healthcare organization, there are several extremely important factors to consider. Comparing background screening vendors can be a difficult task, but you can remain objective by focusing on selecting competitive solutions that can help keep you compliant with current and emerging standards and regulations. This article discusses three key aspects that are critical for any background screening partner selection process.

While hospitals and other healthcare organizations generally aren’t required to run time-of-hire or ongoing background checks, they often do as part of their voluntary due diligence procedures and to mitigate their liability risk. Some states do require background checks for candidates for certain healthcare positions, but organizations typically run them on all staff members.

“Ban the Box” policies have become increasingly more common throughout the U.S. in recent years, with more than 100 states and cities and several large retailers such as Target and Wal-Mart adopting them. Known nationally as the “Ban the Box Campaign,” fair chance policies are designed to give applicants convicted of crimes with an opportunity at a job interview by delaying inquiries into their criminal history until a later stage in the hiring process.

Background check practices in the education industry have received a fair amount of attention in recent years. While health sciences programs conduct background checks on students entering clinical rotations, it’s also important to have a background check program in place for faculty and staff. Whether you plan on updating your institution’s background check policy or are starting from scratch, here are a few items to consider when revising your policy.

I have to admit that this is one of my least favorite topics to write about, but it’s why we are committed to protecting patients from harm through thorough and comprehensive background screening at PreCheck. Although we are only in the second week of February, I read enough stories about bad doctors in the news across the country that I decided to write this article. While the majority of physicians care about their patients, the following four cases prove that some are capable of engaging in some pretty serious criminal behavior.

At first glance, it’s easy to see how FBI background checks could be beneficial in employment background screening. A federal database with fingerprint records might seem like a highly accurate criminal search, but there are many flaws with this type of background check. In fact, I wrote an article in July 2014 explaining why FBI background checks are not enough for healthcare employers.

At PreCheck, we’re passionate about patient care in everything that we do as a background check services provider. While most employers see the value of background checks as a safety mechanism, I thought I would review some of the key benefits an effective background screening process can offer healthcare employers.