OIG screenings are essential to the hiring process within the healthcare industry. The purpose of this search is to be made aware of your current or oncoming candidate’s status in regards to the List of Excluded Individuals and Entities.
An OIG search can be vital to your healthcare organization.
The Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG) search protects your organization from hiring those who are on the sanctions list. Reasons for a candidate being on the exclusion list vary, but they are all vital to the compliance of your organization.
Some possible reasons for exclusion are as follows:
- Patient abuse
- Program-related fraud
- Default on health education loans
- Licensing board action
Most organizations perform pre-employment checks which provide initial insight to candidate status, but another increasingly popular and increasingly necessary practice is performing ongoing OIG checks throughout the time your employees are on your payroll. Below are a few reasons why both are integral to any healthcare organization.
Pre-Employment OIG Checks
An initial OIG check will diminish the opportunity to employ someone who was excluded from participating in federal healthcare programs. This is a risk that is simply not worth taking as it can result in complicated and expensive legal penalties for your organization. If you’re hiring a third-party screening company, be sure to select one that has an unprecedented turnaround time in order to expedite the hiring process and rule out candidates that are not qualified. Being that the OIG report is the most common search among health care staff, it’s a no-brainer to have a pre-employment check on every employee that you hire.
Ongoing OIG Check
Many organizations choose to perform ongoing checks with a typical monthly frequency of. Without performing ongoing checks, an employee who is potentially negligent will go unnoticed. These ongoing checks are an inexpensive way to ensure compliance and avoid penalties caused by employees whose status may have changed during employment.
If you as the employer fail to provide regular updates to public records on behalf of your employees, you could find yourself faced with a negligent hiring claim based on employment law.
In the healthcare industry, there are many ways to slip up, compliance shouldn’t be one of them. Give yourself and your company peace of mind knowing your employees will be well-vetted with a thorough background screening service that includes OIG checks.
To learn more about our process and what services we can offer to keep you in compliance, find us online.
