Your Trusted Partner for Healthcare Background Checks

Every second counts in delivering quality patient care. Protect your employees, patients, and community by partnering with a trusted leader in healthcare background screening solutions.

ProVerify’s dedicated healthcare and life sciences screening solutions offer the personal touch you want. Our web-based applicant portal and mobile features improve recruiter and applicant satisfaction and help organizations streamline their background checks. Our expertise in integrating screening solutions with applicant tracking systems (ATS) delivers unmatched efficiency that helps your organization win the competition for talent.

  • ProVerify’s cost-effective screening solutions are designed to meet your organization’s needs.
  • We offer screening solutions for all positions in the healthcare and life sciences fields.

Prioritize Safety and Speed in Hiring

Healthcare regulation and compliance requirements are constantly changing at the federal, state, and county levels. Health systems need to make sure they have the right healthcare workforce to deliver quality care to their patients. ProVerify’s Healthcare and Life Sciences team provides one of the industry’s fastest background screening turnaround times by streamlining the hiring process. Our healthcare-specific solutions and deep market expertise enables organizations to make informed hiring decisions.

Due to the new and stricter laws set forth by states’ Departments of Health/ Public Welfare, Application Verification provides services to screen employees who are working in the healthcare fields. When the State of Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare issued Bulletin 99-11-05 on August 15, 2011, Application Verification’s team created a set of services to ease the pain felt by these companies. Due to the mandatory monthly screening of all employees, who are either in business or are doing business with healthcare facilities, Application Verification’s Medicare Exclusion service is more comprehensive than just a simple check of the Office of Inspector General’s Excluded Parties List, the General Services Administration’s Excluded Parties List, and the State’s Medi-check list.

  • OIG – Office of Inspector General – excluded individuals and entities
  • GSA – U.S. General Services Administration
  • FDA – Food and Drug Administration
  • DEA – Drug Enforcement Administration
  • Tri-Care – Military Insurance
  • 19-State Medicare List – 50-83% are federally funded
  • State Attorney General’s Report
  • All 50 State License Board Actions

Healthcare is a fast-moving industry that requires employers to take special considerations.

Subject to federal and state-mandated changes, healthcare is more fluid and variable than many other sectors. Because of this, the professionals who work within the healthcare industry need to be exceptionally well-trained and capable of providing high-quality care to patients.

For employers, ensuring these things can be easier said than done. Fortunately, that’s where healthcare background checks come in.

ProVerify has put together a comprehensive guide that outlines the importance of background checks, their essential elements, and how to make yours more effective.

KEY Objective

  • Healthcare background checks are vital to ensure the safety of patients and existing employees, uphold the facility’s reputation, avoid potential liabilities and civil penalties, and confirm that licensed medical professionals possess the required qualifications to perform their jobs.
  • Most checks include national sex offender registry searches, criminal history checks, searches of federal and state sanctions and exclusion lists, education and employment verifications, professional license verifications, and pre-employment drug tests.
  • Employers should develop an effective healthcare background check policy and fully train their HR staff on the screening process to reduce their risks and ensure a uniform, fair hiring process.
  • Given the potential risks in hiring unqualified healthcare workers, it’s crucial to partner with a reliable background screening provider like ProVerify to ensure that your reports adhere to legal standards and are accurate.

Why are Healthcare Background Checks Important?

For some employers, running a comprehensive background check on every candidate seems like overkill.

It is, however, the only way to ensure you’re hiring the right candidate for the job, and that you won’t encounter unexpected or dangerous problems with an applicant at a later date.

A study conducted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (DHHS OIG) found that 19% of nurse’s aides with substantiated findings of employee theft, abuse, or neglect had one or more convictions on their records.

Out of those, 53% had prior convictions for theft offenses, and those with substantiated abuse or neglect were a little more than three times likelier to have prior convictions for crimes against persons.

Healthcare background checks are crucial for all of the following reasons:

  • Verifying applicants are qualified for their jobs
  • Protecting patients and other employees from potential harm
  • Minimizing exposure to potential negligent hiring liability
  • Encouraging honesty during the hiring process
  • Ensuring current employees haven’t committed disqualifying offenses since their initial hiring
    • Verifying professional licenses are in good standing
Healthcare background checks are tailored to the healthcare industry. They are more thorough than many other kinds of background checks and evaluate metrics explicitly designed to help employers find the right care providers.

Of course, these background checks vary in complexity based on the position a company is hiring for. A physician, for example, will require a much more comprehensive check than a nurse, medical assistant or home health aide.

Healthcare Background Check Requirements

Healthcare background check requirements vary depending on which organization conducts them, what the open position is, and how thorough the employer wants to be in the background check.

Most healthcare-specific background checks include the following:

What is a National Criminal Database Search?

A national criminal database search is a search of databases from a variety of publicly available information sources, including court and county records, state criminal databases, corrections information, watch lists, sex offender registries, and more, including:

A record found on a national criminal database search must be verified with the originating jurisdiction to confirm its accuracy and gather more information.

What Does a National Criminal Database Search Reveal?

This type of search might show the following types of information about an applicant’s criminal history, including the following:

  • Arrests
  • Charges
  • Offense types and levels
  • Convictions
  • Sentences
  • Placement on probation or parole
  • Other details

 

However, not all of the information revealed on a national criminal database search can be reported by CRAs to employers.

Instead, if records are found, Proverify will use the provided information to conduct further searches to validate them.

This is a simple yet critical component of a healthcare background check.

These searches pull data from all 50 states, as well as U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia.

The goal is to identify people who have been criminally charged and convicted of, or who have pleaded “guilty” to a sex crime.

Today, more than 500,000 registered sex offenders live in the United States.

Since healthcare professionals come into regular contact with children and vulnerable adults, running a national sex offender search on each applicant is essential.

Identity verification checks ensure the applicant is not misrepresenting who they are.

They also ensure that all subsequent background check inquiries evaluate the correct individual.

Drug Screening is especially important in the healthcare industry.

Healthcare workers have access to powerful prescription drugs, which means employers must know whether the applicants they’re interviewing have a history with substance abuse.

This is especially critical since drug use is common among physicians and other highly-trained healthcare providers.

In fact, a landmark study published in the Journal Psychiatric Clinics of North America estimated that 10%-12% of physicians working in the U.S. have a substance abuse disorder.

Fortunately, drug screenings can reveal drug habits that may disqualify an applicant from a position in healthcare.

Recommended Hospital Pre-Employment Background Check Packages

We understand hospital background checks. In fact, we specialize in the healthcare industry. With that in mind, here are the healthcare background check packages we typically recommend:

  • Identity Verification
  • County Criminal Records Check
  • National Criminal Records Check
  • National Sex Offender Records Check
  • Past Employment Verification
  • Education Verification
  • Healthcare Sanctions Checks and Ongoing Monitoring
  • Motor Vehicle Records
  • Lab-Based Drug Screening
  • License Verification
  • Electronic I9

  • Identity Verification
  • County Criminal Records Check
  • National Criminal Records Check
  • National Sex Offender Records Check
  • Healthcare Sanctions Check and Ongoing Monitoring
  • Motor Vehicle Records
  • Lab-Based Drug Screening
  • Electronic I9
  • License Verification

  • Identity Verification
  • County Criminal Records Check
  • National Criminal Records Check
  • National Sex Offender Records Check
  • Healthcare Sanctions Check and Ongoing Monitoring
  • Motor Vehicle Records
  • Lab-Based Drug Screening
  • Electronic I9
  • License Verification

  • Identity Verification
  • County Criminal Records Check
  • National Criminal Records Check
  • National Sex Offender Records Check
  • Motor Vehicle Records
  • Drug Screening
  • Electronic I9

What Disqualifies You from Working in Healthcare?

Several things can disqualify applicants for healthcare jobs

Some of the common red flags on healthcare background checks are described below.

  • Certain Criminal Convictions
  • Lying About Past Employment
  • Lying About Education
  • Sanctions or Exclusions

Applicants for positions with healthcare organizations that contract with Medicare or Medicaid will likely be turned down for employment if they appear on the Office of the Inspector General’s list of excluded individuals/entities.

  • Failing the Drug Screen
  • License Problems