Indiana Generally Ensured That Selected Nursing Homes Complied With Federal Background Check Requirements

Why OIG Did This Audit

• Background checks for employees are an important safety measure that can help protect the approximately 1.2 million people who reside in nursing homes. Oversight and management of nursing homes are crucial for the safety of long-term care residents.
• We performed this audit to determine whether Indiana ensured that selected nursing homes complied with Federal requirements that prohibit the employment of individuals with disqualifying backgrounds.

What OIG Found

Indiana generally complied with Federal requirements that prohibit the employment of individuals with disqualifying backgrounds. Specifically, for the 825 nursing home employees we reviewed from the 8 selected nursing homes, all but 13 employees had completed background checks. The employees with completed background checks had no disqualifying offenses, and the employees who were required to have a license because of their occupation had a current license (as of the time of their employment) and had no actions taken against their license related to disqualifying offenses.

What OIG Recommends

We recommend that Indiana advise nursing homes to verify that employees’ background checks are completed and maintain documentation of the completed background checks.

The State did not indicate concurrence or nonconcurrence with our recommendation but stated that it would continue to take actions that would address our recommendation.

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