The One Stop Shop For All Your Academic Screening Needs

Estimated Read Time: 5 Minutes

• By using a third-party screening company, like Validity Screening Solutions, it gives you the opportunity to consolidate all of your screening tasks and make things a whole lot easier for yourself
• A full-service screening vendor will also manage and coordinate the collection of screening results for you – compiling this data into an easy-to-read final report
• Remote drug testing allows for universities to locate drug testing facilities that are within a reasonable travel distance for the student that needs to provide the drug testing specimen
• If you want to find a drug testing collection site that is available to all your students, make sure your screening provider has a large network of collection sites
• Validity Screening Solutions does live court record searches where we search actual researchers and verifiers who find and record the data straight from the source, i.e. court records, credit reports, driving history etc.

So your students are ready for their preceptor. Great! But now you have a laundry list of screening requirements from multiple area hospitals and no real solution to manage it all. Some students are going to hospital A, others to hospital B, but guiding them through the process of clearing their screening requirements can get messy – especially when dealing with multiple screening vendors for background checks, driving records, drug testing, etc.

So how do you do it? How do some of the largest nursing programs in America manage the hundreds of students as they reach this milestone in their education?

They Don’t Have to Be Separate

When it comes to background checks and drug testing your students, it may seem like two separate tasks in a long list of requirements, but why do you have to separate the two?

Usually, this is due to the fact that not all screening vendors offer a large enough suite of services to cover any and all of your students’ screening needs. But this isn’t the case for all. If you’re forced to maintain multiple screening vendors due to service limitations, it’s important to know that there are screening vendors out there that provide a suite of services to cover ALL of your screening needs – not just a few.

By using a third-party screening company, like Validity Screening Solutions, it gives you the opportunity to consolidate all of your screening tasks and make things a whole lot easier for yourself. Not only that, but a full-service screening vendor will also manage and coordinate the collection of screening results for you – compiling this data into an easy-to-read final report. This allows you to complete the screening process much quicker and ensure that you’re receiving FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) compliant background checks.

But let me guess, you’re not sure what to look for in a screening company, right? Well let’s touch on that. Below are a few questions you should consider when evaluating a third-party screening company:

1. Does your vendor conduct live criminal record searches?
2. Does your vendor conduct criminal database searches?
3. Does your vendor provide cases that resulted in dismissals or acquittals that can be used in a recruiting decision?
4. Does your vendor test and audit your records to make sure they meet industry standards?
5. Does your vendor provide free consultation and education on the FCRA and other regulations that govern criminal records?
6. Does your vendor have an online account management system?
7. Does your vendor have an FCRA management system, where clients can collect releases and send out adverse action letters?
8. Is your vendor accredited by the NAPBS (National Association of Professional Background Screeners)?

Background checks and drug testing can be hard, but they don’t have to be. Having these questions ready and taking advantage of a full-service screening company can get you on track to consolidating the tasks on your list and making things a whole lot easier to manage.

Hope you were able to learn a lot from this blog and –

“But wait! You’ve gone over how we can consolidate the two task and using a third party screening company to help us do that, but how does the process work? How does remote drug testing work? How am I going to get better background checks?”

All great questions! I’m surprised I almost forgot! So, let’s get into it!

Remote Drug Testing

When talking about remote drug testing the first word that comes to mind is “convenience.” For any university, there’s always going to be students who don’t live near the university or students that commute. There are times when students just aren’t going to be able to travel to a drug testing facility that’s near their university. That’s when remote drug testing comes into play. Remote drug testing allows for universities to locate drug testing facilities that are within a reasonable travel distance for the student that needs to provide the drug testing specimen.

Because you want to find a drug testing collection site close to your students, it’s also critical that you ensure your screening provider has a large network of collection sites. This will only help to ensure that you can find a collection site within a reasonable distance.

So how does the process work? Well, when requesting the remote drug test, most screening vendors will have an online portal that allows you to locate the drug testing collection site of your choice. Once the specimen has been collected, they analyze it to test against the panels of the test that you’ve selected and then send the results. Seems pretty easy, right? Well, that’s because it is!

Better Background Checks

Now let’s talk about background checks. What do we mean when we say “better?” The word to remember in this case is…”compliance.” Those overnight background checks might be fast, but they’re usually non-compliant with the FCRA and in some cases they can even contain inaccuracies. So what’s the alternative?

Here at Validity Screening Solutions we pride ourselves on our live court record searches. With a live court record search we use actual researchers and verifiers who find and record the data straight from the source, i.e. court records, credit reports, driving history etc. Conducting background checks this way ensures accuracy and makes sure we leave no stone left unturned. You already have the stress of making sure your students hit everything on this list to ensure their success as they progress through their schooling, you should at least rest easy knowing that their time and money is well spent with a thorough and comprehensive screening vendor.

We talk more on the importance of using a screening vendor that uses live research methods in a previous blog post.

Closing Thoughts

Okay, now I’m done! But the conversation doesn’t have to end here! We’d love to know what you think, or answer any questions you may have. Please leave a comment below to tell us your thoughts. To learn more, or if you have any questions, please email me at rsanders@validityscreening.com. For more great blogs and content please subscribe to our blogs.