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IAHHC has another legislative success

Posted by: Robert Markette
March 14, 2008
Topic: Home Care and Hospice Regulations

Congratulations to my friends at the Indiana Association for Home and Hospice Care (“IAHHC”).  After a great deal of effort, IAHHC has succeeded in getting legislation passed that temporarily suspends the national criminal background check for home health and personal service companies.  As many of you know, I (and many others) felt the national criminal background check (“NCIC”) as conceived in the statute did not make a lot of sense, because the statute did not allow providers to receive a copy of the NCIC, but only allowed them to receive a determination from the Indiana state police.

This determination was to be a letter from the state police that was issued after the police compared the NCIC to the Indiana list of disqualifying convictions.  The problem with that procedure was two fold, first the NCIC would not show any convictions that were not already on the individual’s limited criminal history.  Second, home health and personal services agencies would routinely disqualify someone for having convictions for crimes other than those listed in the statute.

This second point is important, because the state of Indiana only disqualifies homecare workers for a few convictions.  Home health and personal services agencies use a much broader list of convictions, because they are very concerned about patient safety.  They realize the importance of their position in protecting their patients.

Requiring agencies to pay more and then not allowing them to see the report and make their own determination would actually allow more individuals with criminal histories to go into homes and provide home care.  (Not a situation most home care providers looked forward to.)  In addition, there were other technical problems that led to serious delays in getting the determination.  During these delays, the employee was free to keep working, another potential problem.

Because the statute was not actually helpful (not surprising since neither IAHHC nor ISDH were contacted prior to its passage), IAHHC focused on getting the national criminal background check statute repealed.  Ultimately, the legislature would only pass a one year “partial roll back”. (And even that was only due to IAHHC’s extensive efforts this session, thank you Mary Ann Maroon)  Indiana home health and personal services agencies have until July 1, 2009 to continue to perform limited criminal history checks.  There is one exception:  If you think an employee lived out of state in the previous two years, you will still have to do a national criminal check.  

As things currently stand, the national criminal history statute goes back into effect on July 1, 2009.  Hopefully, between now and then either CMS will take some action based upon its current background check pilot program or IAHHC will be able to get the legislature to fix the national criminal background check statute so that starting in July 2009, the agencies will have the opportunity to see the history information and make their own, more particular determinations about an employee’s suitability to work in their patients homes.  There could be other solutions as well, but in my opinion simply allowing the original statute to go back into effect as is on July 1, 2009 will not be good for homecare providers or for patients.  Before next year, a better solution needs to be found.

         

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