Whether hiring a nurse, medical assistant, or home health aide, you must know that each candidate has the appropriate licenses. It requires a thorough background check.
Fortunately, many employment screening services can help you verify your candidates’ credentials. These include national criminal searches, nationwide sex offender checks, education verification, and more.
Verifications
Healthcare background checks are a must for every healthcare organization. Whether you are a hospital, urgent care clinic, or private medical practice, your patients’ safety is your top priority. Your hiring team must thoroughly bet all potential employees to ensure they share your commitment to patient care and are dutiful, law-abiding citizens.
One of the most important aspects of a healthcare background check is verifying each candidate’s education and work history. This process ensures you hire qualified, honest professionals who work hard for you.
Another critical element of a healthcare background check is ensuring that a prospective employee has no criminal or disciplinary records. It will help you avoid hiring a doctor or other medical professional prone to legal problems and may endanger your patients.
Verifications can include a variety of searches, such as national criminal searches, national sex offender searches, and identity verifications. They will thoroughly describe a person’s background and past behavior.
For instance, a criminal history report will reveal any misdemeanors or serious crimes a candidate has committed. It will also inform their previous employers, giving you a good idea of their commitment to work.
Similarly, a reference check will let you know if a candidate has poor or inappropriate performance reviews or other negative information. It will also reveal if they are lying about their credentials or experience.
Many job fields in the healthcare industry have rigorous education requirements. For example, a doctor must complete medical school before becoming a licensed physician. Similarly, nurses need a certain number of years of experience and training to practice in their field.
In addition to verifying candidates’ qualifications, you should ensure they have the proper licenses to practice in their fields. Hiring someone without a suitable license could result in a negligent hiring lawsuit or other legal complications.
You can do this with a professional license verification procedure, confirming that your potential new hire has all the necessary licenses and qualifications to perform their duties ethically and successfully. It will also reveal any restrictions on their license and the essential information to consider before final hiring decisions.
National Criminal Searches
You must protect your new employees from criminal charges as a medical facility. The illegal national search combines records from local, county, and statewide court databases and federal agencies to gather evidence of any past crimes committed by your potential staff members.
This type of background check is significant for healthcare workers, who are often required to perform delicate and crucial tasks. A guilty candidate could hurt patients; a criminal record could affect your operation.
Using a background screening provider with extensive experience with healthcare background checks is essential. It will ensure that your screenings meet legal requirements and are accurate, thorough, and reliable.
You should also consider doing a national sex offender search, pulling data from every state and U.S. territory to identify candidates with a conviction or guilty plea for sex crimes. It is crucial when hiring nurses who work closely with children, elderly patients, and other vulnerable populations.
If a candidate is on a national sex offender list, they will be automatically disqualified from any hospital job. A sex offender search should be part of every healthcare facility’s hiring process.
Another common aspect of a healthcare background check is employment and education verification. These searches verify a candidate’s work history, education levels, and the schools they attended. They can help weed out applicants who lie about their employment or educational backgrounds and avoid hiring candidates who do not have the qualifications they need to be successful.
Similarly, a drug screening is critical to any background check for your healthcare staff. This screening will reveal whether or not a person has a history of substance abuse. It can help disqualify someone likely to harm themselves, patients, coworkers, and your entire practice.
Using a national criminal search is a good start, but you may want to add additional checks to your background screenings to ensure that you take all the necessary precautions. These screenings include a federal exclusion check, which will determine a candidate’s ability to receive federal funds available to healthcare facilities. They will also verify a candidate’s identity and identify any issues with their credit.
Identity Verification
Identity verification confirms a person’s identity by comparing their name, address, and other information to other data points, such as a government-issued ID or a third-party database. It prevents people from creating false identities and carrying out processes without authorization or consent.
Healthcare background checks are designed to protect patients and their privacy. It includes verifying a candidate’s identity and checking whether they have any medical licenses or disciplinary actions against them that could affect their ability to work at your facility.
Nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists, and other healthcare professionals are responsible for caring for patients and often have access to sensitive personal information, including their patients’ medical history. They must ensure that they have hired employees who will treat patients with respect and not cause any harm by abusing their positions.
For this reason, it is crucial to have a practical background check on new hires to prevent potential employee theft and misuse of sensitive patient data. A thorough background screening can also prevent you from hiring employees with criminal histories that would make it difficult for them to perform their duties correctly.
Moreover, you need to confirm that the information on an applicant’s resume is accurate and up-to-date. A professional and FCRA-certified verification specialist can use their skills and experience to ensure that candidates do not lie about their credentials or commit fraud.
In addition to a candidate’s identity, you can also run a professional license verification on a healthcare candidate to verify that they are licensed to do the job and that their current licenses are in good standing. Hiring an employee who is not authorized or whose license is expired can result in negligent hiring lawsuits.
A healthcare background check can verify a candidate’s status with federal funding programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. An applicant excluded from receiving these types of benefits can negatively impact your entire operation.
A healthcare background check can also identify if an individual has received disciplinary actions from their past employers. These actions can range from simple letters of reprimand to full exclusions. The FACIS(r) search checks 800+ sources nationwide to identify past employer disciplinary actions against healthcare employees. It can help you avoid hiring employees with a record of misconduct that could hurt your business or pose a risk to your patients.
