Credentialing & Privileging

Stay ahead of the curve: Conduct criminal background checks

Credentialing Resource Center Connection, May 6, 2005

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Stay ahead of the curve: Conduct criminal background checks

Dear credentialing colleague:

Criminal background checks are routine in thousands of healthcare facilities. They are part of the application process in military and veterans facilities, as well as in schools and thousands of other jobs. Most medical centers require cardiology applicants to undergo a criminal background check, and some states, such as Wisconsin, require any physician working in a healthcare facility to have a criminal background check.

Despite the fact that so many individual hospitals agree that a criminal background check should be one of many important inquiries conducted before a physician is given permission to attend to patients, many other facilities have decided that such checks are not necessary.

Why? The answer is simply illogical reasoning and stubborn tradition. Ask any human resources officer, chief executive, or governance board member, and he or she will quickly agree that a criminal background check should be mandatory for all individuals providing patient care services. However, ask volunteer medical staff leaders or other members of the medical staff, and some will loudly and convincingly argue that criminal background checks are unnecessary. These individuals believe that

1. Physicians are not criminals

2. If one was, they would tell us

3. The state board of medical licensure conducts criminal background checks

Of course, each of these assumptions is erroneous. Thousands of physicians have been convicted of a crime, and physicians lie about this issue as often as non-physicians. While some state boards do in fact conduct criminal background checks, most will not disclose whether a licensed practitioner has been involved in the commission of a crime-and few will report such information to a hospital that requests verification of a practitioner's licensure status. Case closed.

That's it for this week.

All the best,
Hugh Greeley
http://www.greeley.com/seminars/

 



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