Credentialing & Privileging

Criminal background check uncovers 'hidden' physician info

Credentialing Resource Center Connection, June 3, 2003

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Dear Credentialing Colleague:

Criminal background checks can uncover telling information about a medical staff applicant that is otherwise difficult to find. A medical staff services professional's (MSSP) recent experience illustrates this point quite convincingly. Read on to find out how a background check saved her hospital from hastily granting privileges to a questionable physician.

A physician from another state had applied for clinical privileges at the MSSP's hospital. She conducted the usual primary-source verification tasks and checked the physician's references. She then checked the Federation of State Medical Boards, the Office of Inspector General's exclusions list, and the National Practitioner Data Bank. She also conducted a "Google search." (A "Google search" refers to using the Internet search engine www.google.com to look up additional information about a medical staff applicant.) All information came back clean.

But when her hospital received the results of the criminal background check, it revealed that the physician had received an "advisory letter" from the medical board of the state in which he/she used to practice. She noticed that the background check service had conducted its check using the applicant's first, middle, and last names. So she decided to do another Google search using all three names (she had previously used just the first and last names), and found that several complaints about the physician had been filed with that state. She promptly went to that state's medical board Web site, conducted a search, and obtained additional information.

The physician failed to mention any of these complaints on the application, so the MSSP decided to look at the reference responses once again to see if any red flags would appear. Sure enough, one of the references ranked the applicant between "fair" and "satisfactory" on personality-related questions (i.e., the ability to get along with others, cooperativeness, mental stability, etc.). All other qualities had been ranked as "excellent." The personality-related questions didn't stand out before because everything else checked out fine.

The MSSP had intended to call a special meeting to approve this physician prior to July 1, but in light of this additional information, she and the medical staff leadership decided to move forward very carefully. They want to make sure their medical staff bylaws are followed and that all of the t's are crossed and all of the i's are dotted.

Kudos to this MSSP for going the extra mile and for sharing her story! Although they're not mandated in most states, criminal background checks on physicians make good sense.

That's all for this week,

All the best,

Hugh Greeley



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