Healthcare Background Checks

This week, we announced the results to the inaugural PreCheck Pulse Healthcare Employment Screening Trends Survey. The survey highlights how healthcare organizations handle background checks and other staff screening practices. The nationwide survey conducted online from September to December 2015, garnered responses from over 800 healthcare professionals and the results are now available as a downloadable report.

On Wednesday, August 31, 2016, PreCheck hosted a complimentary webinar covering background check compliance essentials for employers. PreCheck’s Vice President of Compliance Vu Do and Corporate Counsel Kate Vessey discussed the latest background check best practices for employers in an informative 60-minute learning session.

Earlier this month, a nationwide investigation by a Georgia newspaper uncovered a serious problem that the healthcare industry is facing with disciplining doctors. Doctors are a unique case when it comes to enforcement. The nation has a shortage of physicians and they are too valuable to our country for medical boards and agencies to simply discard their license when there are offenses. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s (AJC) investigation, however, reveals that sexual misconduct among doctors in our nation is more pervasive than we thought.

A new law has expanded the requirements for criminal history checks on employees and owners of home health care and personal services facilities in Indiana. As of July 1, 2016, employers must complete an expanded or national criminal history check on all new hires, and no employee without the check can serve patients in their residences. Owners are also subject to the criminal history check requirement and conviction for specific offenses prohibits anyone from owning a facility or providing services to a patient in his or her home.

Most healthcare employers rely on a rigorous background check program in order to safeguard their patients and staff. Background screening is an important part of the hiring and employment qualification process, especially in a safety-sensitive industry such as healthcare. Unfortunately, there are a few background check loopholes in healthcare, particularly for nurses and physicians, which makes having a strong background screening program much more important.

Most health sciences colleges and allied health clinical education programs utilize background checks for screening students, but selecting the right type of background check is just as important. For institutions and clinical program coordinators, selecting a background check that meets the requirements of the clinical sites where students will complete their clinical rotations is key. The most important thing to remember is that background checks come in different flavors, so it’s important to understand the difference between the various types of criminal searches that are available.

Background check practices in schools have received a fair amount of attention in the last few years. Indiana, for example, is among the 12 states and the District of Columbia to recently receive an F for the screening of their teachers, according to an investigation by USA Today with IndyStar.

Employers and human resources leaders have seen several changes to their background check process and policies in the last few years. Today, the increasing number of class-action lawsuits and ever-present threat of data breaches have prompted employers to review their current screening practices and apply proper safeguards to protect patients and their sensitive healthcare information.

In theory, it would make logical sense that a background check based on biometrics such as fingerprints would result in a highly accurate investigation. Background screening experts agree, however, that the FBI fingerprint background check should never be considered a “gold standard” in employment screening. If your healthcare organization currently conducts fingerprint background checks, you’re likely doing so because of a legal requirement. But there’s quite a bit of confusion around and strong misconceptions about the quality of fingerprint based checks.

Criminal background checks can be an effective risk mitigation tool for healthcare organizations and medical staff departments in vetting the quality of physicians. Unfortunately, not all states require background checks for doctors, which can pose a safety risk for patients.