Connecticut Did Not Always Ensure Selected Nursing Homes Complied With Federal and State Background Check Requirements

Why OIG Did This Audit

• Background checks for employees are an important safety measure that can help protect some of the most vulnerable populations who receive Federal health care benefits.
• As part of its oversight activities, OIG is conducting a series of audits nationwide regarding employment in nursing homes of individuals whose criminal background checks identified information or events that should have disqualified those individuals from being hired based on Federal requirements.
• This audit assessed whether Connecticut ensured that selected nursing homes complied with Federal and State requirements that prohibit the employment of individuals with disqualifying backgrounds.

What OIG Found

Connecticut did not ensure that nine selected nursing homes complied with Federal and State requirements that prohibit the employment of individuals with disqualifying backgrounds during our audit period.

• All nine of the selected nursing homes hired one or more individuals who were missing one or more required background or registry checks.
• These nursing homes did not conduct 1 or more of the required background checks on 46 of 270 employees in our sample who had direct access to nursing home residents.

Connecticut did not adequately review nursing home compliance with Federal and State background check requirements during the standard Medicaid survey. Additionally, Connecticut’s training materials on background check requirements had not been available to nursing homes since 2022.

What OIG Recommends

We made three recommendations, including that Connecticut strengthen its monitoring activities to ensure that nursing homes comply with requirements that prohibit the employment of individuals with disqualifying backgrounds, ensure all required background checks have been conducted for the 46 individuals in our sample missing 1 or more background checks, and ensure all training materials on how to conduct background checks for new employees are made available to nursing homes.

Connecticut did not indicate concurrence or nonconcurrence with our first recommendation and concurred with our second and third recommendations. Connecticut detailed steps it has taken and plans to take in response to our recommendations.

---