Vendor Screening is a multi-step process where the vendors are thoroughly checked for law compliance, relevant experience, history with other clients, and if they are qualified to work with the organization. These vendors offer medical equipment, pharmaceuticals(drugs/medicines), and other essential services required by the healthcare organization. Screening the vendors before entering into a contract is crucial because they directly affect the organization’s services. It helps the organization verify the credibility and reliability of the goods and services provided by the vendors. Also, working with a vendor without checking their background increases the risk of financial and reputational damage. Vendor screening is a time-consuming and complex process. That is why, healthcare organizations generally hire trusted third parties to screen their potential vendors to save their working hours.
Vendor Screening is necessary in the Healthcare sector because people trust these organizations with their health and well-being. Contracting with the wrong vendor exposes the organization’s patients to health risks with bad-quality products or late services. The risks are even higher in the case of pharmaceutical vendors. Purchasing medication from an unauthorized or fraudulent supplier results in getting fake or expired medicine. This is precisely why, Vendor screening is a moral, ethical, and professional responsibility of every healthcare organization.
Benefits of Vendor Screening – Reduces Financial Risks, Law Compliance, and More
Screening your vendors is important, especially in the medical sector because it directly affects a patient’s health and life. Vendor Screening helps the organization deliver high-quality goods and services to the patients. The best part is that this screening process also benefits the organization in direct and indirect ways. Vendor Screening benefits the organization in the following ways:
Reduces the Chances of Financial Risks
- Vendor screening ensures the vendor’s financial credibility and also checks if they were involved in any financial fraud in the past. During the screening process, the potential vendors are checked thoroughly to decide if they are financially stable and can provide the required resources and services. This also involves enquiring about their services’ quality and delivery time so that the organization does not face any financial crisis due to delays or low-quality services.
Ensure Vendor’s Law Compliance
- There are some laws that every Vendor needs to follow and they are even stricter for the vendors in the healthcare sector. Your vendors must work within the boundaries and standards set by the law and the government. Non-compliance with the rules/regulations and not having the mandatory certificates indicate that the vendor’s products and services are not reliable and trustworthy.
Better Communication with Vendors
- The screening process provides a platform for better communication between the healthcare organization and the vendors. It helps to clear the doubts of healthcare providers regarding the quantity, quality, and delivery time of the goods and services provided by the vendor. This communication also helps the vendors understand the healthcare provider’s requirements to increase their service’s efficiency.
Saves Reputation of the Healthcare Provider
- It takes time, effort, quality services, and good communication to gain people’s trust in the Healthcare sector. People do not easily trust others with their health and well-being unless they are 100% sure. Therefore, getting your organization’s name associated with unreliable vendors can damage its reputation. This reputational damage has very long-lasting impacts, especially for healthcare organizations. Screening your vendors before signing a contract can help avoid such damages by alerting the healthcare providers about the Vendor and their involvement in unlawful activities.
Selecting the Best Possible Vendor
- Vendor screening allows you to analyze multiple vendors and their services’ quality to choose the best possible Vendor according to your requirements. Screening different vendors can be time-consuming but the results are always in the organization’s favor.
OIG Screening for Vendors – Save Yourself from Penalties
OIG or the Office of Inspector General maintains a List of Excluded Individuals/Entities(LEIE). Any individual or vendor present in this list is not allowed to participate in federally funded programs. This means that the excluded individuals or entities will immediately stop receiving any form of federal funds including Medicare and Medicaid.
There are various reasons for the OIG exclusion and some of the important ones are listed below:
- If they are involved in Medicare, Medicaid fraud
- Involvement with other federal or state program fraud
- Illegal manufacturing and distribution of controlled substances(strong drugs/medicines)
- Suspension of license due to unprofessional behavior or not being able to perform their responsibilities professionally
- Abusing or Ignoring their professional duties
- Misbehaving with patients and other staff members
OIG Screening is a process to verify whether the individual or entity is present in the List of Excluded Individuals/Entities. The entities mentioned here include Vendors that provide goods and services to healthcare organizations. According to the law, any healthcare organization that contracts or works with an excluded vendor will receive civil monetary punishments(CMPs). Under certain circumstances, the organization might also need to pay extra penalties. These excluded vendors are often associated with fraud and illegal activities that’s why working with them will negatively impact the healthcare organization’s reputation.
In order to avoid such severe risks, it is crucial to perform an OIG check during the Vendor Screening process. Performing an OIG background check will confirm whether the vendor is on the excluded list or not. It will save your organization from contracting or working with such vendors saving you from penalties and reputation loss.
Venops – Monthly Automated Staff/Vendor Screening and Other Benefits
Venops is trusted by thousands of healthcare providers for screening their staff and vendors. Building trust in this sector is not easy, but we have managed to gain the trust of our clients with quality services, ease of use, and with right prices. The professionals at Venops value this trust and are dedicated to providing the best-in-class services including:
- OIG Screening with the latest and updated database to ensure 100% accuracy
- Automated Monthly Screening with the help of software tools
- Screening of Vendors without any additional cost
- Also, we provide all of the above benefits at the best possible prices
Our services help save precious working hours for our client so that they can focus on their patient’s health and well-being
Conclusion
Screening of staff and vendors has a significant meaning for a Healthcare Organization. It helps the organization avoid hiring staff and working with vendors that have a bad reputation due to their involvement in unlawful activities. Screening of staff and vendors is a multi-step process that takes a lot of time and effort. Another major issue with screening vendors and staff is that it is a continuous process. This means that the organization needs to continuously screen its present employees, new hires, existing vendors, and new vendors. For any healthcare organization, it can be quite difficult to handle their day-to-day responsibilities while screening the vendors and staff. An ideal solution for this situation is using a third-party screening service provider like Venops. We have years of experience and a team of legal and financial experts that allows us to screen the existing/new staff and vendors with speed and accuracy.