The Guide to HealthCare Background Checks

Few industries have such an extensive impact as healthcare. Everyone interacts with this sector at some point in their lives. Today, healthcare is a fast-paced, multi-billion-dollar industry. From primary care to emergency medicine, providers face immense pressures. Regulations and requirements demand a high degree of skill and education from employees. Finding the right person for every job is critical. To do so, healthcare background checks must be a pillar of the hiring process.

Every provider and organization must consider how to screen applicants effectively. In some states, it may even be a legal requirement to complete a level of vetting. Let’s define this process at a high level and examine why screening is so crucial. Later, we’ll break down the elements of background checks for healthcare employees and discuss best practices. Here’s what healthcare providers should know.

What Are Background Checks for Healthcare Workers About?

Most people think of screening as involving criminal background checks in the average job. However, in a healthcare setting, there are many more steps involved. We can define a healthcare background check as a screening process created explicitly for this industry’s needs. It’s a tool to determine if someone is safe and qualified to work in a high-pressure environment. Workers might have direct access to patients or controlled medications. Preventing wrongdoing or harm to patients requires thorough screening.

Pre-employment vetting can't predict the future. It can't prevent someone seemingly qualified from committing wrongdoing. However, background reports help you identify red flags early in the process. More selective hiring reduces risks, even if you can’t eliminate them. Consider why managing that risk is so critical.

What Makes Pre-Employment Background Checks So Vital in Healthcare?

The average retail or office worker isn’t tasked with potentially life-saving care every day. Consider the stakes at play in healthcare. These risks lead to creating formal standards and ethics for care providers. Background checks are essential because these workers can impact lives in many ways. Consider just a few of the roles you might need to screen for:

• Doctors and specialists
• Nurses and nurse practitioners
• Anesthesiologists
• Pharmacists
• Radiologists
• Surgeons

All these individuals have a duty to provide potentially life-saving care. They look after many of society's most vulnerable members, interpret tests, and dispense highly controlled medications. Unlike many others, they have individual access to patients. Background checks for healthcare professionals help uphold the high standards these roles demand.

Consider a doctor who makes a critical mistake because of a falsified background. That error could have staggering and even fatal consequences for the patient. There is always also the risk of abuse. There are too many unfortunate headlines about healthcare providers who have committed sexual abuse on duty. Those with access to drugs may be tempted to pilfering patient medication. All these scenarios can occur, which could be more likely without proper screening.

You can manage these risks by examining healthcare job-seekers from every angle. Background checks for healthcare employees are imperative for patient safety.

Data Privacy Is Also at Risk

The need for screening goes beyond preventing malpractice and harm. Consider how much sensitive information exists in hospitals and doctor’s offices. Patient records often contain large volumes of controlled information. All organizations must comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA ) to protect this data. However, healthcare groups continue to be targets for ransomware and data breaches, and the risk continues to increase.

Though these breaches often originate from external threats, you cannot rule out the risk internal personnel pose. An individual may still access or misuse information inside your practice. Good screening helps you select employees who understand and comply with the HIPAA.

What Are the Elements of Thorough Healthcare Background Checks?

Many roles in healthcare require extensive education, certification, and licensing. Even those roles that don’t relate directly to patient care should undergo screening. It is just as key to vet doctors as it is to screen the support staff in a hospital, for example. In general, healthcare organizations will adopt a comprehensive approach to their screening. That means going beyond basic criminal history checks to dig deeper.

What are the significant elements of a successful healthcare background check? Some or all of the following components may be a factor. Here are the tools you should have at your disposal.

Professional Employment Verification

Experience is vital in selecting employees for healthcare jobs. Many positions demand a specific level of expertise. In other cases, an individual’s past employers can speak to their level of skill and quality. Sometimes, a past employer may provide information that raises a red flag for you. Employment history verification is one of the critical elements of a healthcare background check.

This tool lets you verify information such as job titles or positions, general duties, and possibly re-hire eligibility. You may learn if someone was dismissed from a prior position. Verifying information is vital rather than taking a healthcare professional’s resume at face value. Ensure that every provider has the appropriate skills to serve patients ideally.

Education Verification

Few industries have such rigorous academic standards as healthcare. Professionals may spend more than a decade in education, and the effort to learn often never ceases. However, healthcare organizations must select those with the right qualifications for a position. Examining someone’s academic history throughout residency is frequently a key factor. Some groups may even prefer graduates of particular institutions known for excellence in specialties.

It’s not unheard of for a medical professional to fake academic credentials. Everyone, from nurses to doctors, may do so in the interest of employment. Like work history, you must verify what an applicant tells you. For educational background checks, contact the relevant institutions. These tools let you confirm someone’s attendance and graduation status. Verify that an applicant has the appropriate academic background for your vacancy.

Healthcare Sanctions Checks

This screening is unique to the healthcare industry. Professionals in this sector may move between states seeking employment. Some may do so to outrun charges of malpractice or harm in one state. Organizations may also engage in wrongdoing as a group. In some cases, the federal government may take punitive action against them.

The government maintains a log of disciplinary and punitive action taken against healthcare providers, including license suspensions. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) aims to prevent sanctioned individuals from causing further harm. To that end, it has a sanctions list. Sanctioned individuals and groups cannot participate in Medicare or Medicaid, receive federal funding for the care they provide, and organizations in good standing must not hire sanctioned individuals.

Therefore, it is imperative to check the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) OIG sanctions list. To continue receiving federal dollars, you must also assess other sanctions lists, including the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Don’t overlook this key step.

Drug Screening

Every employer has the right to foster a drug-free workplace. In a healthcare environment, that prerogative is of even greater importance. Any drug use can slow reaction times and degrade an individual’s mental performance. Addiction can cause further issues, all of which could impact the quality of care. Just as importantly, some healthcare settings provide access to controlled substances. That includes drugs ripe for abuse, such as opioid painkillers. Drug testing is, therefore, a common practice.

Impaired medical professionals can commit errors or even engage in medical malpractice and theft from the organization. In general, drug abuse in a healthcare setting is a considerable risk to patient safety. Most organizations, therefore, choose to use an extensive drug screening panel before hiring. While a clean pre-employment drug test doesn’t preclude future problems, it does make them less likely. Random or periodic workplace tests may also occur.

Thorough screening alongside internal controls for substances is essential for safer healthcare environments.

Criminal Background Checks

Here, we arrive at one of the most common and essential parts of the screening process. As we’ve seen, healthcare groups must rely on a diverse set of screening tools. However, the criminal background check remains fundamental. Some types of criminal records could identify a person who poses a high risk to your organization.

When screening for criminal records, healthcare groups often look for the most serious red flags. These often result in a candidate’s disqualification. Sometimes, that disqualification may be automatic under state law and includes grave crimes, such as:

• Homicide or manslaughter
• Felony assault or battery, especially when causing bodily harm
• Rape and other sexual offenses
• Drug trafficking-related crimes
• A prior history of elder or patient abuse

Other conviction records, such as those for fraud, theft, and other financial crimes, are often unmistakable warnings. Does that mean you can’t be hired in healthcare with a criminal record? Not necessarily. Minor criminal convictions or very old records may not have much impact. However, it will be challenging to get a healthcare job with convictions.

The Types of Criminal Background Checks Used in Healthcare

Achieving good results with a background check process requires using the right tools. Criminal records can exist at many levels, so healthcare providers must know where to search for them. At backgroundchecks.com, our services simplify the process.

Our county-level background check services provide information on criminal records in a specific area, such as your location. A state-level background check provides a broader point of view of records from across your state. We also maintain the US OneSEARCH, a proprietary instant criminal database search. This check consults over 650 million records nationwide to provide rapid results. Using those results, you can zero in on the information you need. Additional products, including alias and address history checks, support locating the relevant criminal records.

Sex Offender Background Checks

While criminal record checks should report sex crimes, you should conduct a sex offender registry search. In many states, registered offenders are legally barred from obtaining medical licenses. Adding a redundant check to your process can prevent critical facts from slipping through the cracks. Sex offenses are a serious red flag. Even in states without an explicit prohibition on licensing such individuals, organizations should take care. Employing such individuals may be risky and lead to adverse PR outcomes. Be thorough in your searches to gather all the facts.

Vital Aspects to Remember When Developing Your Screening Process

There are many aspects to remember when hiring healthcare workers. Here are a few additional insights to consider when designing your background check policy.

First, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all background check. As we’ve seen, a thorough approach requires multiple screening products. These include criminal checks, employment and academic verification, etc. At backgroundchecks.com, we streamline the process of ordering all these checks. Select packages aligned with your specific needs or opt for our healthcare background check package. With such an approach, you can save time without sacrificing detail.

Second, some positions may require more extensive screening than others. For example, ambulance services must be careful when hiring drivers. In such cases, a motor vehicle record check will be essential. That wouldn’t be the case for the average doctor on call, whose driving records are irrelevant. Likewise, some roles may require credit checks. A financial officer with access to tens of thousands of dollars every day should undergo additional screening. Otherwise, you might risk embezzlement. Determine which roles in your organization need extra screening.

Finally, make no exceptions. Everyone needs a background check. Don’t limit these tools to doctors and nurses only. Instead, apply your policy evenly across the entire organization. There are two reasons to do so. Firstly, it is more fair and equitable. When everyone is subject to the same procedures and standards, you can reduce the potential for discrimination. Secondly, given the potential for malicious individuals to infiltrate an organization, it is reasonable to strive for safety at every level.

Setting-Specific Considerations for Screening Healthcare Workers

Proper employee screening is vital, no matter the specific healthcare setting. However, some institutions have unique conditions. In these areas, more specialized screening considerations may be important. Specifically, hospitals and home healthcare providers should think carefully about their approach. Here’s what to know.

Hospitals

As expansive and complex organizations, hospitals face complex screening requirements. They may employ hundreds or even thousands of people across job categories. In most cases, hospitals will use the full suite of tools described above. Still, depending on their particular needs, they may do more (or less). To learn more, read our article about how hospitals use background checks.

Home Healthcare

While most people think of healthcare as taking place in a formal setting, that’s changing. Home healthcare is growing in scope and importance. Many people wish to maintain independence as they age or encounter health issues. That creates a demand for home healthcare support. Such demand is only likely to increase.

By 2030, everyone classed as a Baby Boomer will be 65 or older. With an aging population, nursing care requirements are skyrocketing. While some opt for nursing homes or retirement communities, home healthcare has advantages. It maintains a familiar environment while preserving an individual’s independence as far as possible. Home healthcare has many benefits but comes with many more risks.

A hospital worker typically won’t help a patient do their grocery shopping or pay their bills. A home health aide might. That gives them unparalleled access to a patient’s life—and a considerable potential for abuse. Unfortunately, stories of home health aides abusing those in their care aren’t uncommon.

For some time, these positions were less regulated. In some states, that’s changing. However, agencies performing home healthcare placement should focus on a comprehensive screening and hiring process regardless.

More than just employment verification and reference checks, drug screening and criminal background checks are imperative. Some states have set up specific registries for elder or patient abuse. Consult these whenever possible. As more people require personalized care, the need to protect them from dangerous individuals is greater than ever. Learn more by reading our blog post, What You Need to Know About Background Checks for Caregivers.

Find Professional Help for Compliant, Thorough, and Reliable Background Check Processes

Healthcare background checks are a vital tool. They protect patients and reduce an organization’s exposure to risk. As we’ve seen, there are many elements to consider. Professional help can demystify the process and streamline your access to the appropriate tools. At backgroundchecks.com, we have years of experience supporting many healthcare providers with robust tools. With support for regulatory compliance and fast screening, we help you improve your hiring processes with ease. Find out more about equipping your hospital, clinic, or doctor’s practice with screening solutions from exceedingly experienced background check companies today.