1. Avoid Hiring Fake Medical Staff: Understanding the Importance of Primary Source Verification for
Medical Screening
Before going into the main area of discussion, we first need to understand what primary source
verification is? Primary source verification or PSV is an act of obtaining the applicants credentials from
the original source. Means that education, experience, license etcetera of a job applicant should be
verified from the source of origin. And when we talk about primary source verification for medical
screening, before hiring the medical staff, it is highly important for the employer to verify the credentials
of the applicant as the field of medical is very sensitive and related to the life of human being.
Now let’s discuss why the primary source verification of a medical staff has high importance while
medical screening. In the global scenario, shortage of qualified health professionals has made
employers in many countries to look for the qualified foreign professionals to fill the unoccupied
opportunities. And when these qualified professionals leave their home country, large number of
unqualified locals starts to fill the positions left vacant by those. Many of them may have certificates
and degrees earned from unaccredited or bogus institutes.
As the field of medical is highly sensitive, therefore primary source verification has emerged as the
highly important task for employers. A well designed and implemented PSV programme gives maximum
security to the employer and prevents medical staff having false education, employment experience or a
license to practice as a medical professional.
Moreover, medical screening of a health professional is also a compulsory requirement from many
regulators, but due to difficulties in background checks internationally, PSV of a medical staff often been
implemented poorly or omitted from the case. This negligence during background screening may leads
to medical malpractice done by fake medical person. There have been many cases around the world of
medical malpractice, and they have been increasing. Everyday newspapers and websites are filled with
these cases. Beside these cases which are reported, there have been many cases which are not reported
to the concerns and the media.
Medical malpractices are often been done by the fake medical staff whose primary source verification is
not been conducted properly during the medical screening phase. Employer should understand the
importance of the medical screening generally and primary source verification specifically.
Professional background screening companies can help a lot in this regard. Writing a letter or email to
primary source and hope for the response may not be a useful tool anymore. Background screening
companies have experience to do the screening successfully and provide the accurate results. They have
standard procedures to execute the process of screening from start to end efficiently. Therefore, hiring
services of background check companies for medical screening would be a definite advantage.
Remember!

2. Neglecting the primary source verification during the medical screening of a medical professional may
lead to a life and death of a human. Therefore it is a social responsibility of employers to perform the
background check dutifully and regulators to keep a strict check on medical background screening of all
the medical staff hired locally or from foreign countries.
About the Author
Khurram Zahid is a Research Analyst at DataFlow Group. Dataflow provides background checks for
immigration departments, primary source verification for the medical industry and Pre employment
background screening across the Middle East and South Asia. Legal and professional, comprehensive
and current. DataFlow is the choice of leading organization and governments worldwide.