8 Potential Gaps to Look Out for in Healthcare Screening
Learn about common healthcare background screening program shortcomings and gaps, plus what risks they can cause.
Healthcare organizations may think they have a handle on employee screening, but gaps could still exist. The last thing a hospital needs is increased liability caused by an employee’s unprofessional or criminal behavior. Mitigating some of your people-risks and, most importantly, protecting the patient can start with identifying potential gaps in your own program.
Read our Healthcare Background Screening Gaps and Best Practices to find more information on these gaps plus how your organization can help address them head on.
Gap 1: Inconsistent Drug Testing Policies
Having an inconsistent, undocumented, or unspecified drug screening program can leave room for blind spots. Having frail policies or inconsistent practices around those who may be subject to drug testing, when tests can occur, and why drug screenings may be initiated can be risky.
Gap 2: One-Size-Fits-All Screening
Healthcare organizations typically employ individuals in many different roles, such as doctors, nurses, receptionists, custodians, physical therapists, transcriptionists, X-ray technicians, security guards, cafeteria workers, and IT specialists. Screening all employees in the same way can leave many blind spots and pose its own risk since screening should always be position relevant.
Gap 3: Lack of Rescreening or Continuous Monitoring
Not rescreening current employees for illegal drug use or monitoring new criminal activity or healthcare sanctions may expose healthcare organizations to risk, including fines. Rescreening involves ordering new background checks to run on a current employee for changes in their records, while criminal record monitoring can include a continuous scan for new criminal activity detected by data sources.
Gap 4: Incomplete Criminal History Searches
A criminal history search is a requirement for many roles at virtually all healthcare organizations, but there are myriad of jurisdictions and sources available to check that often overwhelm HR departments. The reality is that conducting only a single criminal search within a background check may lead organizations to miss potentially relevant criminal history.
Gap 5: Lacking Healthcare Sanction Checks and Minimal Monitoring
Healthcare organizations use state and federal databases to check that candidates and employees are appropriately licensed and free of sanctions that would prohibit them from working for the organization. Because the Office of the Inspector General’s List of Excluded Individuals/Entities (OIG LEIE) is not the only source of sanctions information, organizations that rely solely on this source may expose themselves to risk, including the risk of hiring an excluded person, and may face serious consequences, including fines and damaged reputation.
Gap 6: Insufficient Extended Workforce Screening
While we’ve identified challenges and potential gaps in screening prospective and current employees, there are also contracted and temporary workers to consider. In our 2025 Benchmark survey, 62% of our US healthcare respondents stated that they hire contingent workers throughout their organization and 52% expect to hire more in the coming year. Even with extended workforces being so common in healthcare, our survey found that 65% of respondents have their contingent workers screened by the vendor’s chosen provider, and not their organization’s own provider.
Gap 7: Not Checking Previous Name and AKAs
In most cases, someone changing their name may be innocent enough, but sometimes an individual might use a name change to evade the system. Failing to conduct a search by a previous name or AKA used by an individual may expose a healthcare organization to unnecessary risks, including the possibility of employing someone convicted of a serious crime under a different name.
Gap 8: Inconsistent In-House Verifications
Verifying the history of a potential employee can include validating licenses, employment histories, and education. Hospitals and healthcare organizations might perform their verifications in-house—with processes that vary by the individual(s) performing the task. Mistakes made with in-house verification may reduce the quality of an organization’s healthcare staff. This can put patient safety, the organization, their patients, and their brand at risk.
The above screening gaps can lead to common risks for healthcare organizations, perhaps without them even realizing risk exists. Overcoming these gaps can go a long way toward protecting organizations from hiring someone who is unqualified, unlicensed, or unsafe, as well as helping to mitigate the risk of lawsuits, fines, and brand damage.
Release Date: December 15, 2025
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HireRight is a leading provider of on-demand employment background checks, drug and health screening, and electronic Form I-9 and E-Verify solutions that help employers automate, manage and control background screening and related programs.