Almost all nursing homes employ at least one person with a criminal conviction in his or her background, according to report released last week by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The report revealed that 92 percent of the nursing homes employed at least one person with at least one criminal conviction, and nearly half employed five or more such individuals.
Overall, about 5 percent of nursing facility employees had at least one conviction.
According to the HHS report, about 84 percent of employees who had convictions had their most recent criminal incident prior to their employment at the facility. The majority of these prior convictions -- 44 percent -- were for crimes against property, such as burglary, shoplifting and writing bad checks. About 20 percent were convictions for driving while intoxicated; roughly 16 percent were for drug offenses; and about 13 percent were for crimes against persons.
Federal regulations prohibit Medicare and Medicaid nursing facilities from employing people found guilty of abusing, neglecting or mistreating residents. They also prohibit those facilities from hiring anyone who has had a finding entered into the state nurse aide registry concerning abuse, neglect or mistreatment or residents or the misappropriation of their property. The data collected in this study doesn't confirm whether any of the facilities studied violated the regulations.
However, the study does raise questions about the importance of criminal background checks on nursing home employees. Though there is no federal law or regulation requiring nursing facilities to perform background checks, most states have instituted their own requirements.
According to the report, there are eight states that have no such requirements.
Of the states that do, 10 require an FBI criminal background check as well as a statewide background check.
Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia only require a statewide check.
Of the states that do, 10 require an FBI criminal background check as well as a statewide background check.
Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia only require a statewide check.