Home Health & Hospice Week

About 4 percent of reviewed employees had criminal convictions.

You may have more hoops to jump through when it comes to vetting your employees, if the HHS Office of Inspector General gets its way.

At Congress’ request, the OIG examined whether home health agencies’ current background check practices are keeping out employees who should be disqualified to work in home care due to previous crimes. The OIG found cases where HHA employees had convictions for crimes against persons or were registered sex offenders. However, it couldn’t discern whether those crimes should have kept the agencies from employing the individuals.

Nevertheless, “we recommend that CMS promote minimum standards in background check procedures,” the OIG says in its report summary. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services “could promote minimum standards for HHA employee background checks by encouraging more States to participate in the National Background Check Program.”

In commenting on the report, CMS agreed with the OIG. CMS is still accepting applications for funding to participate in the NBCP’s latest round, the agency noted.

Fact 1: About 4 percent of HHA hires in the review period had criminal convictions, according to criminal history records from the FBI.

Fact 2: Only about half of the agencies the OIG reviewed conducted background checks of employees after hire.

See the report at http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-07-14-00130.pdf.