Hospitals and other large healthcare providers employed more than 7.2 million workers in 2023, not counting the tens of thousands of hospital vendors providing essential products, supplies, and services to these facilities. To ensure that each person’s credentials are valid and up to date, the healthcare industry frequently relies on the services of outside credentialing professionals.
Credentialing service providers play an essential role in verifying the credentials of hospital employees. They do this by accessing databases of state and federal licensing authorities, educational institutions, and past employment records. Doing so relieves healthcare facilities of burdensome administrative tasks, allowing hospital staff to focus on patient care. However, tracking the credentials of every vendor’s workforce is more challenging, especially when hiring individuals with criminal convictions.
Vendors can include medical suppliers, pharmaceutical reps, equipment vendors and technicians, IT consultants, remote access contractors, and other healthcare industry representatives (HCIR). The oversight of these vendors is not just a matter of regulatory compliance but a fundamental aspect of safeguarding patient safety and protecting the reputation of healthcare institutions. Understanding the background of those who have access to sensitive patient data, healthcare facilities, and vulnerable populations is crucial.
That’s where PostHire comes in. PostHire provides 24/7 nationwide continuous criminal background screening of large and small vendor workforces. Healthcare vendor credentialing companies that conduct one-time or periodic criminal background screening as part of their service are unaware of a vendor’s criminal arrest or prosecution until they conduct a subsequent background check. PostHire screens every individual in the workforce continuously from coast to coast and notifies clients of an employee’s arrest or prosecution in near-real-time.
Vendor as a Risk to Patient Safety and a Hospital’s Reputation
It is imperative that healthcare vendor credentialing providers have immediate and up-to-date access to the arrest and prosecution records of every vendor’s workforce, even after the initial credentialing process. Only PostHire’s proprietary continuous screening product performs non-stop research of arrest and prosecution records across the country, 24 hours a day.
Ensuring patient safety and protecting the assets of a hospital is of utmost importance. Hospitals must be notified immediately if any vendor is facing criminal charges or prosecution. Hospitals should not allow access to vendors who are facing charges of sexual assault, elder or patient abuse, fraud, theft, illegal drugs, or assault as this can compromise the hospital’s safety. However, vendor credentialing providers may not have reliable up-to-date information if it is not provided by PostHire’s unique criminal screening services. No other criminal screening provider can match PostHire’s comprehensive reach and accuracy. In a series of case studies, PostHire consistently outperformed other workforce screening services and re-screening providers by identifying dozens of criminal charges that the other providers missed, including serious and violent felonies.
Compliance with Federal Guidelines
Vetting all vendors and their workers to screen for individuals whose criminal convictions disqualify them from access to facilities that receive federal funding is essential to avoid government sanctions and keep the hospital campus safe.
Healthcare facilities are required by the US Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to exclude any individual convicted of patient abuse, a controlled substance-related felony, or a healthcare-related fraud felony from its business transactions. Hospitals that fail to comply with the exclusion requirement could risk losing Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement. Only PostHire’s continuous workforce screening product ensures that healthcare vendors or representatives excluded by federal regulations are denied access to hospital property.
Evidence of widespread criminal conduct among healthcare vendors is easy to find.
- 13 medical equipment suppliers were federally indicted for fraud and kickback schemes.
- A New York durable medical equipment firm’s owner was charged with submitting $1.3 million in fraudulent power wheelchair claims to Medicare.
- A medical equipment vendor in Clearwater, Florida was charged with theft of a hospital bed.
Healthcare vendors’ exclusionary status may change over time. Only continuous background screening will immediately alert a vendor credentialing agency of a vendor’s potentially excludable offense.
Identifying Federally Compliant and Safe Healthcare Vendors
Healthcare vendors are essential to effective, efficient patient care and safety. They provide hospital personnel with training, education, sales, and support. Continuous background screening of a vendor’s workforce ensures that individuals who could threaten patient safety and the security of the hospital are identified immediately following their arrest or arraignment in court. In addition to protecting the physical safety of patients and hospital staff, compliance with state and federal regulations protects the hospital’s standing and preserves the necessary revenue from Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement.
