Healthcare Background Screening

Healthcare organizations must meet rigorous standards to ensure patient safety and maintain eligibility for federal funding. A comprehensive screening program typically includes criminal background checks, OIG/SAM sanctions monitoring, professional license verifications, and clinical health screenings, such as titers and TB testing.

• Sanction Screening: Checking federal exclusion lists is a mandatory requirement to avoid hiring individuals prohibited from participating in federal healthcare programs.
• Credentialing: Verifying professional licenses directly with state boards ensures providers are legally cleared to practice.
• Clinical Compliance: Confirming that staff meet immunization and physical health standards is essential for maintaining a safe environment and adhering to OSHA and CDC safety guidelines.

Under federal law, any healthcare provider receiving reimbursement from Medicare or Medicaid is prohibited from hiring individuals on the OIG’s List of Excluded Individuals/Entities (LEIE). Hiring an excluded person can result in civil monetary penalties and violate the False Claims Act.

• Financial Risk: Failure to screen can result in massive fines and the potential loss of all federal funding.
• Total Workforce Compliance: These federal requirements apply to all employees, volunteers, and third-party contractors, not just clinical staff.
• Changing Regulations: Because the LEIE is updated monthly, continuous monitoring is the industry standard for maintaining "audit-ready" compliance.

MedEx Packages (Plus, Pro, and Complete) are tiered screening solutions designed to align with the complex regulatory needs of the healthcare sector. These packages allow organizations to scale their screening based on the risk profile and federal requirements for each role.

• Role-specific Screening: Choose the right level of assessment for each role – from administrative staff to specialized surgeons. Choose from three distinct levels of depth. MedEx Plus covers federal OIG/SAM exclusions, MedEx Pro adds state-level Medicaid exclusions, and MedEx Complete provides the most comprehensive view by including State Medical Board actions.
• Audit-Ready Standards: Every package is designed to meet the strict documentation and Primary Source Verification rules required for industry accreditation, ensuring your organization remains compliant with Joint Commission (TJC) standards and healthcare accreditation requirements.
• Complete Coverage: MedEx bundles all necessary healthcare-specific searches into a single request, ensuring no critical compliance check is missed.

FACIS Level 3 is the most comprehensive screening available for healthcare providers. It searches over 5,000 state and federal sources, including OIG, SAM, FDA, DEA, and individual state licensing boards, to identify debarments, letters of reprimand, and other disciplinary actions that a standard criminal check might miss.

• Full Disciplinary History: Identifies risks related to clinical competence and professional conduct that may not have resulted in a criminal conviction.
• National Reach: Aggregates data from all 50 states, ensuring that a provider's history in one region follows them to a new organization.
• Risk Mitigation: Provides the highest level of protection against "Negligent Credentialing" claims for health systems.

Verifying that providers hold active, unrestricted licenses is a critical defense for any healthcare facility. Verified First utilizes Primary Source Verification, contacting state licensing boards directly to confirm the status, issue date, and expiration of credentials for nurses, physicians, and healthcare specialists.

• Direct Board Verification: We bypass secondary databases to get the most accurate, up-to-the-minute information directly from the issuing authority.
• Ongoing monitoring: Our system tracks license expiration dates and notifies your team when it is time to re-verify a license, preventing compliance lapses.
• Documented Audit Trail: All verifications are timestamped and stored electronically, providing the complete documentation needed for internal and/or external audits.

Managing titers, physicals, and drug tests across multiple clinic portals often causes significant hiring delays. By integrating healthcare-related screens directly into your ATS, you can centralize pre-employment health checks in one place, providing a faster and more professional experience for your candidates.

• Unified Workflow: Order titers, TB tests, and physicals alongside your background searches to eliminate dual data entry.
• Accelerated Start Dates: See exactly where a candidate stands in their clinical screening workflow, allowing your team to project accurate start dates and fill shifts faster.
• HIPAA-Compliant Storage: Medical certificates and results are stored within your encrypted platform, simplifying record management while protecting candidate privacy.