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Suspect Caregivers Missed on Healthcare Sanctions Background Checks

Caregivers with criminal records or unsavory histories are going undiscovered as the background checks included in the  sanctions lists are flawed and missing vital information.    According to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times,  the records on the Health Resources and Services Administration, or HRSA, had glaring discrepancies when compared to other sources.   As a  follow up to the joint Pro Public Los Angeles Times report on the frightful condition, concerning the oversight on healthcare workers, the mistakes were rather shocking.

It has been reported that various disciplined  healthcare workers slip from state to state, avoiding detection and finding gainful employment despite their past histories.   Nurses, pharmacists, psychologists, and other healthcare workers are fired from one job and find another, their past histories undetected.  Some have serious criminal records, including felonies for theft, drugs, and violent crime.  Some are sexual offenders.

Apparently the states are supposed to file notice of disciplinary actions to the database.    Apparently some states do not file as often as they should or so sporadically that the evident lapses create dangerous situations for vulnerable patients and for the institutions themselves.   I have wrote about this on different occasions, as on one article entitled More California Nurses Shown as Convicted Criminals.  I praise the Los Angeles Times and Pro Publica for their joint study.

I recommend that anyone hiring candidates in the healthcare industry conduct the third tier FACIS search.  This background check includes the OIG/GSA plus information regarding disciplinary action from more than 800 healthcare services in the fifty states.    At the very least conduct the Healthcare Sanctions Search, known as the OIG/GSA.   As members of the healthcare service you want the best employees you can find, and ones that do not pose a danger to either your patients or fllow staff members.

Check them out before you hire.

By Gordon Basichis

Gordon Basichis is the Co-Founder of Corra Group, specializing in pre-employment background checks and corporate research. He has been a marketing and media executive and has worked in the entertainment industry, the financial, health care and technology sectors. He is the author of the best selling Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story, a non-fiction novel that helped define exotic sexuality in the late twentieth century. He is the author of the Constant Travellers and has recently completed a new book, The Guys Who Spied for China, dealing with Chinese Espionage in the United States. He has been a journalist for several newspapers and is a screenwriter and producer.

4 replies on “Suspect Caregivers Missed on Healthcare Sanctions Background Checks”

[…] There has been enough mayhem going on in the healthcare and caregiver sectors to cause enough worry for the oversight agencies.  There have been various reports and news articles, the most notable a joint study been Pro Publica and the Los Angeles Times, detailing how healthcare can find work, despite criminal histories and disciplinary actions taken against them.  I have written about this subject a number of times.  One such article is entitled, Suspect Caregivers Missed on Healthcare Sanctions Background Checks. […]