The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) has stated that the fingerprint-based background check requirement for certain health care employees will not become effective on October 1, 2007.

The law that recently amended the Illinois Health Care Worker Background Check Act requires that certain health care employers must submit a fingerprint-based background check for all applicants who, on or after October 1, 2007, receive a conditional offer of employment for a position subject to this Act. However, this new law stated that this requirement would go into effect “as soon after October 1, 2007, as applicable, and as is reasonably practical” in the discretion of the Director of Public Health.

This law requires that the IDPH contract with livescan fingerprint vendors who will be able to submit the applicant’s fingerprints electronically to the Illinois State Police. The IDPH will need to establish a procedure for receipt of the results of the fingerprint background check from the Illinois State Police, as well as the demographic information on the applicant that it receives from the health care employer. It also needs a procedure for transmission of the background check results from the IDPH back to the health care employer. The establishment of all of these processes is expected to take a significant amount of time, since the IDPH will first need to comply with applicable state contracting laws and regulations, as well as draft and properly publish the new procedures in accordance with relevant administrative rules. Accordingly, until further notice that the new procedures will become effective, the IDPH has stated that health care employers should continue to utilize the same criminal background checks (i.e. the UCIA name-based check) that they have previously used.       

For further information, please contact your regular Hinshaw attorney.

This alert has been prepared by Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP to provide information on recent legal developments of interest to our readers. It is not intended to provide legal advice for a specific situation or to create an attorney-client relationship.