Why Conduct Background Checks?

A local nursing home has found itself in hot water after a five-year employee was arrested for stealing patient financial information for use in paying his utility bills.  Apparently, the employee had started stealing patient data almost immediately after he was hired.

​Had the nursing home bothered to conduct even a cursory background check, however, the owners would have discovered that the employee was on parole after serving a three-year prison sentence for stealing patient financial information from residents at another local nursing home.  Now, the employee is headed back to jail and the nursing home is ‘on the hook’ for dozens of HIPAA violations and will likely be required to restitute families for the money stolen from their loved ones.

​At Smart Training, we always recommend clients conduct background checks on new or prospective hires.  Many of our healthcare clients balk at this notion, saying they ‘know’ their employees and don’t want to spend the money for any sort of criminal background check.  In Texas, where the State Highway Patrol offers a $3 ‘arrest check,’ inspecting what you expect seems relatively inexpensive.
 
When background checks are relatively easy to obtain and the risks of failing to conduct them are huge, employers who fail to do so are putting themselves and their practices at risk.