In the state of Kentucky, only employees of nursing homes and assisted living homes (nurses, etc.) are subject to criminal background checks. These employees are typically the ones who provide direct care to residents. Members of the public are hailing this as a sane, common sense law, while others are lauding it as unfair to those who have undergone criminal rehabilitation.

On Thursday, the legislation was introduced to the 2012 General Assembly. The law states, among other things, that criminal background checks must be conducted for all long-term care employees. This law would extend background checks to janitors, and even dining room workers.

The motive for this law stems from a lawsuit filed in 2010. A Fayette Circuit Court found that a nursing home in Lexington unknowingly hired a registered sex offender as a maintenance worker.

The legislation is very exhaustive, and prohibits employment in nursing facilities or assisted living communities based on a variety of factors. The factors that would exclude employment are as follows: conviction of a felony related to theft, abuse or sale of illegal drugs, neglect, abuse, sexual exploitation of an adult, or any sexual crime.

The legislation was explicitly brought about in light of cases in which nursing home employees took advantage of residents. The exploitation was not only financial, but cases also documented workers taking sexual, emotional, and physical advantage of residents.

Lobbyists worked for nearly five years to draft legislation that would require background checks for all employees. The legislation was unanimously praised by these interest groups. One lobbyist stated "It's important because it affects the quality of the people taking care of our elderly population."

Similar legislation has also been brought about (Senate Bill 44) in the 2011 General Assembly, however, it failed. Lobbyists state that this may be because some lawmakers misunderstood the bill. Currently, no nursing home industry representatives have voices any opposition to the bill.

In June, a $3 Million dollar federal grant was given to Kentucky to conduct criminal background checks, using state of the art fingerprint technology instead of name based checks only. This grant for background checks was primaraly used by those in direct care facilities.

Top 5 Tips to Avoid FCRA Non-compliance
The ramifications of not following the “rules” surrounding pre-employment screening may lead to financial catastrophe as described in a complimentary guide provided by Pre-employ.com. You can download it here: http://www.pre-employ.com/5Tips

Free analysis:
Reviewing an organization’s background screening process yearly helps ensure that the procedures used follow the prescribed steps, and will identify areas of concern. Pre-employ.com offers a free analysis of background screening programs here: http://www.pre-employ.com/quote

*We welcome relevant comments and questions from consumers, experts, and human resources professionals. Please do not submit comments with advertisements as they will not be posted publicly. Thanks for visiting our blog!

In the state of Kentucky, only employees of nursing homes and assisted living homes (nurses, etc.) are subject to criminal background checks. These employees are typically the ones who provide direct care to residents. Members of the public are hailing this as a sane, common sense law, while others are lauding it as unfair to those who have undergone criminal rehabilitation.

On Thursday, the legislation was introduced to the 2012 General Assembly. The law states, among other things, that criminal background checks must be conducted for all long-term care employees. This law would extend background checks to janitors, and even dining room workers.

The motive for this law stems from a lawsuit filed in 2010. A Fayette Circuit Court found that a nursing home in Lexington unknowingly hired a registered sex offender as a maintenance worker.

The legislation is very exhaustive, and prohibits employment in nursing facilities or assisted living communities based on a variety of factors. The factors that would exclude employment are as follows: conviction of a felony related to theft, abuse or sale of illegal drugs, neglect, abuse, sexual exploitation of an adult, or any sexual crime.

The legislation was explicitly brought about in light of cases in which nursing home employees took advantage of residents. The exploitation was not only financial, but cases also documented workers taking sexual, emotional, and physical advantage of residents.

Lobbyists worked for nearly five years to draft legislation that would require background checks for all employees. The legislation was unanimously praised by these interest groups. One lobbyist stated "It's important because it affects the quality of the people taking care of our elderly population."

Similar legislation has also been brought about (Senate Bill 44) in the 2011 General Assembly, however, it failed. Lobbyists state that this may be because some lawmakers misunderstood the bill. Currently, no nursing home industry representatives have voices any opposition to the bill.

In June, a $3 Million dollar federal grant was given to Kentucky to conduct criminal background checks, using state of the art fingerprint technology instead of name based checks only. This grant for background checks was primaraly used by those in direct care facilities.

Top 5 Tips to Avoid FCRA Non-compliance
The ramifications of not following the “rules” surrounding pre-employment screening may lead to financial catastrophe as described in a complimentary guide provided by Pre-employ.com.  You can download it here: http://www.pre-employ.com/5Tips

Free analysis:
Reviewing an organization’s background screening process yearly helps ensure that the procedures used follow the prescribed steps, and will identify areas of concern. Pre-employ.com offers a free analysis of background screening programs here: http://www.pre-employ.com/quote

*We welcome relevant comments and questions from consumers, experts, and human resources professionals. Please do not submit comments with advertisements as they will not be posted publicly. Thanks for visiting our blog!

If Americans are known for anything, it's their generosity and compassion for the less fortunate or challenged. Whether the challenges are economic, mental, or physical, Americans have always been at the forefront of volunteerism. It isn't any great surprise to see Americans volunteering for the most menial tasks in order to make the life of another, less challenging.

However, with that great reputation comes enormous responsibilities. The nonprofit organizations or groups that utilize volunteerism have a duty to ensure that the other volunteers, organizational members, and the public, are not being placed in danger. Each volunteer brings a history or path that, while may not be relevant to the job, could impact the organization and others. The news media is fairly replete with horror stories. Volunteer screening is a must in the 21st century.

That being said, there is a fine line between responsible scrutiny and improper invasion of privacy. There is some specific information that can be researched and some that cannot. The public deserves to know that volunteer organizations are doing their due diligence to ensure public safety by searching for the correct information in the proper location.

Proper screenings and volunteer background checks for a criminal past are imperative and necessary. Lawmakers recognized that and created laws to ensure the public safety while allowing for volunteer background checks. It's important that organizations who utilize volunteers, keep up with the ever-changing laws. State and federal statutes vary with each new bill passage.

At Pre-emply.com, you will find the site dedicated to providing you with the best, most relevant, up-to-date information on laws designed to protect the public and those working with and near volunteer workers. With that knowledge, Pre-employ.com and the client work together to determine what are the most effective measures to keep your organization safe from criminals and legal problems.

*We welcome relevant comments and questions from consumers, experts, and human resources professionals. Please do not submit comments with advertisements as they will not be posted publicly. Thanks for visiting our blog!

A recent report filed by CBS indicates a disturbing trend in the healthcare industry. According to a government report from the Department of Health and Human Services, 92% of representative pool of 260 nursing homes across the country had at least one employee with a criminal record on staff in 2009. With the job seeker pool as large as it is and the sensitive nature of the nursing home industry, it seems surprising that nursing homes would continue to hire people with criminal records. It stands to reason that many of these hires were not screened by a pre-employment screening agency. Indeed, they were found out in the government report through the use of a few simple background checks that any pre-employment screening would have utilized.

Additionally, over half of the nursing homes had five or more employees with criminal records currently on staff. The majority of these convictions were for property crimes such as theft, burglary and shoplifting, while several were found to be convicted sex offenders. Both represent liabilities for businesses for a variety of reasons. Hiring someone convicted of theft is a liability in that convicted thieves are more apt to steal business supplies from the workplace or residents of the home’s personal belongings. We shouldn't have to elaborate the dangers of allowing sex offenders to operate in a place where patients are often at their most vulnerable. Lawsuits, disruptions, not to mention the moral implications of such a choice should be obvious.

Most states require nursing homes to conduct basic criminal database checks on new hires in order to be in compliance with regulations, but only seven states require the more extensive FBI background check that checks for convictions in multiple states.

This report, filed by CBS, shocked a lot of viewers and readers. People seeking to put loved ones or themselves in a nursing home will soon be asking the question, "Does your facility do fingerprint background screening on new hires?" If you can answer yes, you're much more likely to get their business.

Furthermore, government officials, shocked by this news, reiterated the necessity of conducting extensive background checks on all new hires in the healthcare industry. Background checks should not be limited to accessing the FBI databases for criminal records, but should include conversations with past employers, education record checks and identity verifications. The average do-it-yourself approach of most nursing homes may not be able to successfully navigate the patchwork nature of many states' criminal databases. For this reason, government officials recommend that health care facilities such as nursing homes and hospitals use professional pre-employment screening agencies to conduct background checks on new hires.

*We welcome relevant comments and questions from consumers, experts, and human resources professionals. Please do not submit comments with advertisements as they will not be posted publicly. Thanks for visiting our blog!

When a leading healthcare organization found that the costs and time that they were spending on employee background checks were not leading to the desired results, its management realized that outsourcing these functions could be a cost-effective and efficient solution. The organization had come to the conclusion that their own compliance efforts were not sufficient, and given the possibility for fines and penalties, it was clearly time to put a more effective solution into place. In addition, far too much effort was being spent on routine human resources tasks, such as unemployment insurance claims, which distracted the human resources team from carrying out the healthcare organization's core mission.

Therefore, they chose to outsource employee verification procedures, including background screening as well as immigration status eligibility checks, to Pre-employ.com. We were able to save them a total of $575,000 over five years using the following solutions:

Background and Drug Screening - Savings: $2 per employee
Our background checks and drug screening ensured compliance with State and Federal regulations and saved the organization 8% compared to their prior in-house procedures.

Free Access to i-9/E-verify Service - Savings: $3 per employee
E-verify represents the most secure and accurate method of verifying an employee's immigration status as per Federal law, and besides the cost savings, use of our E-verify service guaranteed that our client would not be subject to any fines or penalties for failure to comply with ICE regulations.

Income and Employment Verifications/Unemployment Insurance Claims - Savings: $2.65 per employee
In addition to the cost-effectiveness of outsourcing these functions, the healthcare organization was able to better utilize its own Human Resources department to carry out its primary mission of providing the highest quality health care.

By using our outsourced services and automated solutions, this healthcare organization was able to achieve cost savings that are very beneficial considering the cost constraints under which many healthcare enterprises operate at this time. Most importantly, its management could be reassured that all of its processes were being carried out by compliance professionals who therefore eliminated any possible legal liabilities which the organization could have faced for failure to comply to State or Federal regulations.

Healthcare organizations need to keep human resources administrative costs as low as possible, while making sure that they do not face costly fines and penalties for failure to comply with State or Federal employment regulations. Therefore, leaders in the healthcare industry are increasingly turning to outsourced background screening contractors such as Pre-employ.com in order to improve efficiency and reduce or eliminate compliance liability. With regulations growing more complex, it is advantageous to turn to Pre-employ.com to make sure that they are properly followed, especially as outsourcing background screening is also cost-effective.

*We welcome relevant comments and questions from consumers, experts, and human resources professionals. Please do not submit comments with advertisements as they will not be posted publicly. Thanks for visiting our blog!