Employers, more than ever before, need to protect themselves against accidents and crimes committed by their employees. With negligent hiring, lawsuits, training costs, workplace violence and theft on the rise, pre-employment screening as well as taking the correct pre-employment screening steps are no longer an option, but rather a necessity for businesses.

After a number of scandals in the home health care industry in New York, the Attorney General’s Office has decided to start a state registry for home health aides. The Attorney General found thousands of health aides working without valid certification and dozens of cases wherein home health care companies were sued for fraudulent billing.

New York presently does not keep track of home health aides, and hopes that creating a registry will help solve the problem by creating accountability. New York’s Department of Health would maintain the registry, which, if approved, may take another year to create.

New York’s Attorney General, Mario Cuomo, found $70 million in fraudulent billing to Medicaid, which is increasing the cost in New York. Some aides were found billing 35 hours in one day. Furthermore, fake education claims, fake identities and criminal records have become common in the industry. The creation of the registry hopes to correct that.

The Department of Health will also be required to conduct background checks on home health aides, the results of which will be accessible on the registry.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 3:44 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.