HHS Office of the Inspector General Reports and Advisories

The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has released several reports and a special advisory bulletin that are relevant to the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) National Background Check Program. Links to each document and a brief description are available on this page.

This report provides an interim assessment of Idaho and Mississippi, the last two States that are participating in the program.

This OIG report provides an assessment of the 4 States that concluded Program participation in 2019.

This OIG report provides an assessment of 11 of the 12 States that concluded Program participation in 2017 and 2018. (The 12th State did not submit closeout documents in time to be included in this study.)

This OIG report provides an assessment of States that concluded NBCP participation prior to 2017, and it also provides information for CMS to assist States that continue to participate in the Program.

This OIG report is an interim assessment of the overall implementation status and State's results from the first 4 years of the National Background Check Porgram. The OIG reviewed reports on implementation milestones, expenditures, and (where available) data on number of background checks completed.

This OIG report is in response to a congressional report for OIG to analyze the extent to which home health agencies (HHAs) employed individuals with criminal convictions and to explore whether these convictions should have – according to State requirements – disqualified them from HHA employment. It recommends that CMS promote minimum standards in background check procedures and suggests that CMS could promote minimum standards for HHA employee background checks by encouraging more States to participate in the National Background Check Program.

This OIG special advisory bulletin is an updated HHS OIG Special Advisory Bulletin that provides guidance to the health care industry on the scope and frequency recommended for screening employees and contractors where such payment is made through Federally funded health care programs. It describes the penalties that may be incurred if an excluded individual is employed by a provider.

This OIG report examines the issue of nurse aides with substantiated findings of abuse, neglect, and/or misappropriation of property. It compared data from each State’s nurse aide registry with criminal conviction data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

This OIG report is a baseline assessment of long-term care facilities’ use of background checks. The OIG surveyed long-term care provider administrators on existing procedures for conducting background checks on prospective employees, and their opinions on whether the use of background checks affected the availability and quality of long-term care employment applicants.

This OIG report is a study of the extent to which nursing facilities employed individuals with criminal convictions. In the report, OIG recommends that CMS address this problem in part by ensuring that States conduct background checks consistently.