Recently, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS OIG) launched a multi-state coordinated law enforcement action to apprehend individuals involved in a scheme to sell falsified nursing degrees and transcripts. 

The enforcement action, properly titled Operation Nightingale, resulted in 25 individuals being charged for involvement in fraud.

This fraudulent scheme highlights the importance of conducting thorough background investigations in the pre-employment hiring process, especially in the healthcare industry. 

Had a School Accreditation inquiry been performed in conjunction with an education verification, it would have prevented these individuals from obtaining employment in the first place and potentially putting patients at risk.

Verifying Identity

Commercial Investigations LLC has numerous methods to verify a subject’s education before they get through your doors. 

Primary source is the most accurate education verification system, as the institution that awarded the degree is contacted to authenticate a subject's credentials. 

Using the Primary Source permits CI to accurately confirm the information that was presented and give our clients results that they can be confident to use in their hiring decisions.

One inquiry that helps us provide more accurate results is our School Accreditation. 

Accreditation is the recognition from an accrediting agency that an institution maintains a certain level of educational standards; meaning, they can legally issue diplomas. 

Without accreditation, any degree will be marked adverse by our investigative staff.  While it is more work for the investigators, verifying can be crucial to catching falsified credentials before the subject is hired.

Most employers believe that education verifications are marked adverse due to falsified credentials.  However, a considerable amount of adverse education verifications are a result of the school not being accredited. 

Employers should be utilizing both an education verification inquiry and school accreditation inquiry to confirm one's educational history. 

Full Covered Compliance

The majority of hiring teams believe that only an education verification will be sufficient, but that is clearly not the case.

Being a Licensed Private Investigative agency is a key advantage for our team at CI.  It allows our investigative staff to access different databases that are not permitted to all Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRAs). 

This vast network authorizes us to check for the institutions' accreditation status before your hiring team makes a final decision.  

Additionally, we highly recommend not accepting a copy of a degree / diploma / transcripts from a subject. 

With the advancements in technology, there are now many websites where individuals can create fake certificates that look more authentic than they had in the past.  You can look on Amazon and find degrees that look almost identical to the real documents. 

CI recently conducted a background investigation where our staff sent a subject-supplied certificate directly to the college for authentication and found out that the certificate was fake.  It happens more often than most think, so it is best to verify all components before hiring. 

Requesting validation of subject supplied information from the primary source is not standard practice in the background screening industry, but it is standard practice at Commercial Investigations LLC.  

In the case of Operation Nightingale, the 25 individuals being charged were able to obtain RN / LPN licenses by showing falsified education credentials, yet still passing the particular exam.  

Face Value

Just because a subject passes the licensure exam does not necessarily mean their education is valid.  The only way to accurately verify that a subject has both a valid education and license is to perform two separate inquiries, each using the Primary Source to verify. 

By utilizing an education verification with school accreditation and professional license verification from CI, the fake diplomas and transcripts would have been detected, and the subjects would never have been eligible for employment in the healthcare industry. 

A compliant, comprehensive background investigation is an essential component of pre-employment screening with the foremost goal of protecting our vulnerable populations.  

CI is dedicated to providing the highest quality background investigations to ensure that subjects with falsified credentials are identified before they move through your hiring process. 

Using Primary Source verification, healthcare HR professionals can be confident they are obtaining all accurate information available on a subject. 

Partnering with CI can help protect your patients, staff, and business from the dangers of falsified credentials.  Contact Us to talk more about your current background investigation process.