 Woman Steals Nurse Identity to Work in St. Louis Hospitals’ ICU A woman in St. Louis has pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to healthcare fraud and identity theft after she lied about her nursing credentials to work at a St. Louis hospital and teach nursing at a New Mexico college. Thirty-six-year-old Samantha Rivera pretended to be a nurse in 2015, when she lied about her resume to get a job teaching nursing at Brown Mackie College in New Mexico. In 2016, she secured a job at a hospital in St. Louis by using the name and license number of a New Mexico nurse with a similar name to apply for a job through a staffing agency. She also falsely claimed to have a bachelor’s degree in nursing and experience working in the field. Rivera faces up to 16 months in federal prison.
Anatomy (and Costs) of a Bad Hire A recent CareerBuilder survey has revealed that companies lost an average of $14,900 per bad hire made in 2017. Thirty-five percent of the respondents claimed that the number one reason for making a bad hire was that the candidate didn’t have all the needed skills for the position. Other factors include a candidate lying about qualifications, taking a risk on a “nice” person and pressure to quickly fill a role. Making a bad hire doesn’t just stop with one person, though, either. Studies show that poor performers lower the bar for other workers on their teams. While the impact of a bad hire affects productivity, quality of work and the time to recruit and train a replacement, CareerBuilder said that it’s losing a better candidate that is the worst part of making a bad hire. 
Employers who don’t comply with regulations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), including for violations like failure to provide notice to applicants in a stand-alone format and getting written permission before running the background check, could face expensive and time-consuming class action lawsuits of up to $1,000 per violation. But, after the “concrete injury” Supreme Court decision in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, federal courts have a heightened sensitivity to standing issues and have a new sense of protection as a result. If no harm can be demonstrated, employers can breathe easy, even if they have made a mistake.
States and Cities Line Up to Ban Salary History Questions While the laws regarding asking job applicants about their salary histories vary between jurisdictions, they generally aim to prevent employers from asking salary-related questions or from screening job candidates based on salary histories until after an offer is formally made. Some laws include the prohibition of contacting an applicant’s former company without the candidate’s written consent and, in California, employers must provide applicants with the pay scale assigned to the relevant position. States, cities, counties and localities that have put into place or have plans to implement such laws include Delaware, Albany County, California, Puerto Rico, San Francisco, Massachusetts, and Philadelphia.
A class action lawsuit has been filed by Waffle House job applicants who claim the company violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The complaint consolidates claims brought by 23 plaintiffs in two Waffle House class action lawsuits filed earlier this year. Waffle House has been accused of using background checks to make employment decisions without giving job applicants the required notice and opportunity to explain or correct the information in those background checks. The first claim was filed in April and alleges that background screening company Public Data provided cheap services without FCRA compliance. In the second lawsuit, a 20-year employee claims he was denied a new job after he was never given the chance to explain or correct findings of a background check.
 State Marijuana Laws: Employers Get by with a Little Help from their Lawyers The knowledge that the influence of drugs or alcohol can cause significant safety problems, reduce productivity and impact workplace morale has been complicated for many employers with the uptake in revisions to state marijuana laws. The drug is classified under “Schedule 1”, which means that federal law views it as highly addictive, with no medical value. Even so, trial courts in both Connecticut and Rhode Island have recently held that, despite federal law, an employer violates state law when it refuses to hire an employee who fails a marijuana test but is eligible for medical marijuana under state law.
DOT Notice Provides Guidance on How the Use of Medical Marijuana Will Affect Drug Testing Results In an updated “Medical Marijuana Notice,” the Department of Transportation (DOT) stated that the use of medical marijuana, pursuant to state law, does not constitute a legitimate medical reason for a positive drug test. The Notice makes it clear that marijuana remains illegal under federal law and DOT expects that Medical Review Officers (MROs) will treat its use as illegal. In addition, “MROs will not verify a drug test as negative based upon information that a physician recommended that the employee use ‘medical marijuana.’” As such, even when a non-DOT regulated employee tells the MRO that he or she is certified to use medicinal marijuana, the test results still will be certified as positive.
DOT Updates Drug Testing Panel to Include Opioids Effective January 1, 2018, opioids will be included in the drug testing program of the Federal Department of Transportation (DOT). Testing will now include hydrocodone, hydromorphone, oxymorphone and oxycodone and applies not only to specimen testing validity values, but also to initial and confirmatory testing values. Methylendioxyamphetamine has been added as an initial test analyte, while methylenedioxyethylamphetamine has been removed as a confirmatory test analyte. The revisions harmonize DOT testing with the US Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Mandatory Guidelines that were revised earlier this year.
 Employers Prepare Themselves for the I-9 Squeeze The 30th Annual AILA California Chapter conference revealed trends in travel bans, provided updates on recent policy changes in immigration adjudications and focused on the Trump Administration’s intention to tighten immigration rules and ramp up enforcement at every level of the federal government. But there also was a focus on California’s Immigrant Worker Protection Act (AB 450). The law regulates five broad areas related to I-9 inspection practices and policies, including 1. Access to an employer’s place of business, 2. Access to an organization’s employee records, 3. Notice to employees of I-9 inspections, 4. Notice to employees of I-9 audit results and 5. Reverification of current employees.
New I-9 FAQs on Transgender Employees, E-Verify Time Zone Issues, Closing Cases, and More! Five recent Form I-9 and E-Verify updates will lead to changes in compliance procedures and processes for the upcoming year. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has confirmed updates and changes regarding “Form I-9 and Transgender Employees,” space issues for “Additional Other Last Names Used,” “E-Verify Time Zone Guidance,” “E-Verify TNC Guidance,” and “E-Verify Automation Guidance.” | January 2018 | Message from the Editor:
Happy New Year! We hope you have a very happy and prosperous news year. Welcome to another edition of ‘Inside Background Screening’ our new newsletter. Our goal is to bring to you cutting edge news and information about what is happening in the background screening world to help keep you informed and to position you to make the best possible hiring decisions. We hope you enjoy ‘Inside Background Screening’ and that you will share your interest and thoughts with us. Lorenzo Lorenzo Pugliano CEO | EMPLOYMENT SCREENING | LEGAL ISSUES | DRUG SCREENING | EVERIFY & IMMIGRATION STATUS | ||||||||
| January 2018 | ||||||||||||||
| Message from the Editor:
Happy New Year! We hope you have a very happy and prosperous news year. Welcome to another edition of ‘Inside Background Screening’ our new newsletter. Our goal is to bring to you cutting edge news and information about what is happening in the background screening world to help keep you informed and to position you to make the best possible hiring decisions. We hope you enjoy ‘Inside Background Screening’ and that you will share your interest and thoughts with us. Lorenzo Lorenzo Pugliano CEO | ||||||||||||||
| EMPLOYMENT SCREENING | ||||||||||||||
| LEGAL ISSUES | ||||||||||||||
| DRUG SCREENING | ||||||||||||||
| EVERIFY & IMMIGRATION STATUS |
| Disclaimer: All information presented is for information purposes only and is not intended to provide professional or legal advice regarding actions to take in any situation. Nationwide Screening Services makes no representations for any products or services that are mentioned and accepts no responsibility for any actions or consequences taken without the guidance of a licensed attorney or professional consultant
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