The Hidden Risk in Hiring: Why Healthcare Employers Need Stronger Screening

For all employers, but especially those in the Healthcare and Life Sciences industry, hiring and managing a workforce carries tremendous responsibility. And in an era where it's easier than ever for individuals to fake or alter documents, photos, credentials, and even whole identities, keeping up with these evolving threats plus remaining confident in your employees' identities, qualifications, and experience is critical.

With the rise of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI), deepfake scams, and inexpensive digital editing programs, it's easier than ever to commit employment fraud. Methods are also becoming increasingly creative and sophisticated. Candidates may change their names to evade detection of sanctions, fabricate credentials, hire proxy interview participants, or even construct entirely false identities to subvert the employment screening process altogether.

Download HireRight's new Guide to Healthcare Background Screening eBook

Ways to Help Strengthen Your Background Screening Program

No matter the intent of the bad actors, healthcare employers must be diligent and well-equipped to verify the identities, backgrounds, and credentials of the people they hire. In effort to do so, here are some ways to help strengthen your healthcare background screening program:

Build a More Robust Risk Mitigation Strategy

Healthcare is a compliance-driven industry with many roles requiring a significant and specific level of education, certifications, and licensing. At minimum, an effective employee screening and monitoring program is one driven by compliance, supported by the latest technology, and defined by pre-employment screening with comprehensive vetting tailored to healthcare-specific risks.

Create a Comprehensive Program

While different departments within an organization may oversee different candidates' touchpoints and various aspects of risk management in hiring, there is significant benefit to working with a single screening provider. This can include cost savings and higher levels of account management.

Additional comprehensive risk management can help take your program from just good to great. This can include utilizing credential change tracking, social media screening, extended workforce screening, and more.

Consider HireRight's Healthcare Solutions

We understand that trust is critical in the employer-employee relationship. But with the risks associated with healthcare, employers can't afford to trust a job candidate's word alone. HireRight offers a comprehensive portfolio of product and services including Global ID Check, County Criminal, Felony and Misdemeanor search, health screening, and drug testing.

Confirming your candidates' and employee's qualifications is important, and services like verification checks, occupation license and certification monitoring, clinical references, and DEA controlled substance license verification can help.

Utilize Exclusions and Sanctions Checks

Ensuring candidates are in good standing can be imperative in healthcare. Some consequences for sanctioned providers and their employers can be no payment through federal programs, possible criminal charges, and employer penalties. HireRight's sanctions check and monitoring can help determine if an individual has been sanctioned and/or if any disciplinary action has been taken against them.

Why Stronger Screening is Important for Healthcare Employers

In today's era of uncertainty - where it's increasingly difficult to discern what and who is real - HireRight can help bring clarity and confidence to your screening and hiring decisions. Leveraging the latest technologies and trusted data sources, HireRight's healthcare solutions are designed to help employers uncover the truth about your candidates and your workforce, so you can mitigate risk and make informed, smart decisions about the people you employ.

In our eBook, we explore the emerging technological threats facing healthcare employers in staff hiring and highlight exactly how HireRight can help strengthen your screening and monitoring programs to mitigate those risks.

Interested in more takeaways? Dive deeper into these insights, plus how HireRight helps healthcare organizations get it right, by checking out our new Healthcare eBook.

Download HireRight's new Guide to Healthcare Background Screening eBook

Release Date: September 11, 2025