If you’re hiring healthcare workers for your medical practice, you know they need to have background checks before they’re hired. That way, you know the person you’re hiring doesn’t have sanctions or other problems in their past. By searching databases and sites, you’ll be able to have peace of mind in your hiring decisions, so you can continue to build a qualified medical team. Rather than try to search through thousands of sources, though, you can get everything you need in one place.
What is an OIG Background Check?
An OIG background check is based on records from the US Department of Health & Human Services Office of Inspector General. These records are kept on all medical employees, in order to provide information to companies and organizations that may consider hiring them in the future. With this type of background check, you can find out about your potential employees more easily. That ensures that you’re hiring the right people for the job and that the patients in your care will be getting quality help, as well.
By only hiring healthcare practitioners who are in good standing with the OIG, you also comply with all federal regulations for hiring them and having them work at your organization. You’ll be able to provide the best care to people who need your help, and you won’t have noncompliance worries, either. That will give you the best opportunity to participate in federal programs and receive the right level of assistance, so you can help as many patients as possible with their healthcare needs and goals.
What Will You Learn From the OIG?
When you get an OIG background check, you’ll learn a lot about the medical professional you’re considering hiring. These background checks look for sanctions, disciplinary actions, suspensions, punitive actions, or penalties. If anything like this has occurred in the career of a healthcare professional, the OIG will have a record of it that it can provide. One of the biggest reasons to find information in a background check is to learn whether the person you want to hire will be the right fit for your organization.
If you work with federal programs like Medicare and Medicaid, you can only hire people who also have the right to work with those programs. If they’ve been sanctioned or excluded from them due to past actions, they probably won’t be right for your practice. Some reasons a person could be excluded by the OIG would include a Medicare or Medicaid fraud conviction, neglect or abuse of a patient, and felony convictions for things like controlled substances or financial misconduct that are healthcare-related.
The Value of Having a Check Performed
When you have an OIG background check conducted, you can ensure that your job candidates are in good standing and can be hired by your practice without a problem based on their status. That way your practice can continue to be eligible for federal programs. That’s the biggest value of having a check performed, and can reduce your concerns about funding and related federal requirements. Another valuable reason to have the check performed is to avoid potential penalties and reduce any patient risk.
Healthcare Sanctions Checks are Critical
The goal of a healthcare sanctions check, which is another term for the OIG background check, is to be sure the person you’re hiring is a safe and effective medical professional who won’t harm your practice. If you have a job candidate who’s sanctioned, you want to know that before you extend an offer of employment. If there is a sanction against someone, you’ll be able to see the name of the source that took the action, whether it’s still an active sanction or when it ended, and what the sanction was for.
In some cases, the reason for the sanction won’t be shown, as it’s not always available. If someone has a sanction from long ago, that might not be as much of a concern for hiring them, as it would be if their sanction was very recent. But it’s generally good practice not to hire medical professionals with active or recent sanctions, as your practice will want to protect its Medicare and Medicaid funding eligibility, as well as its patients and staff.
