让包括俄亥俄州在内的许多州的立法者担心，有犯罪背景的医疗保健导航员可能会对他们本应帮助的消费者犯下欺诈或其他罪行。

俄亥俄州众议员芭芭拉·西尔斯（Barbara Sears）提出了一项法案，该法案将使用强制性背景调查来帮助保护消费者免受这种风险。西尔斯引用联邦法律的缺陷作为她提出州法律提案的原因。“没有什么可以保护消费者，”她谈到联邦法律时说，“尤其是导航员可以访问的大量财务和其他个人信息。”

医疗保健导航员收集税务信息和社会安全号码作为他们工作的一部分，因此他们很容易进行身份盗窃。美国众议院监督和政府改革委员会在一份报告中强调了这个问题，该报告发现“消费者的主要担忧是身份盗用和管理不善的宣传活动造成的经济损失风险增加。” 由于联邦法律中缺乏背景调查条款，除非各州制定自己的法律，否则医疗保健导航员有可能聘请被定罪的重罪犯——包括有欺诈罪的重罪犯——担任顾问。

俄亥俄州提议的立法旨在通过要求医疗保健导航员通过俄亥俄州保险部完成背景调查、认证和培训来解决这个问题。将使用的背景调查类型、范围以及将被视为拒绝就业理由的定罪类型的确切细节尚不清楚。

理想情况下，该州将使用国家背景调查产品，而不是基于州的产品，因为这样可以发现个人完整的公共犯罪历史。例如，可以使用来自 第三方的 US OneSEARCH 之类的工具。这个国家背景调查工具将姓名和出生日期与从全国各州和地方数据库中收集的超过 4.5 亿条公共犯罪记录进行比较。它几乎可以立即返回结果，而且非常实惠。

在审查背景调查结果时，可以考虑审查被判犯有欺诈、识别盗窃、重大盗窃或暴力犯罪的个人案件，这些案件可能对作为医疗保健导航员的消费者构成风险。西尔斯说，如果该措施获得通过，俄亥俄州的医疗保健领航员将需要满足许多与保险代理人和经纪人相同的标准，从而提供更好的消费者保护。

As part of Obamacare, healthcare navigators will assist individuals in registering for benefits. However, Obamacare does not contain any provisions for background checks for healthcare navigators. This has left legislators in many states, including Ohio, concerned about the possibility of healthcare navigators with criminal backgrounds committing fraud or other crimes against the consumers they are meant to be helping.

Ohio’s Rep. Barbara Sears has introduced a bill that would use mandatory background checks to help protect consumers against this risk. Sears cites shortcomings in the federal law as the reason she introduced the proposal for a state law. “There is nothing in place to protect consumers,” she said of the federal law, “especially with the amount of financial and other personal information the navigators will have access to.”

Healthcare navigators collect tax information and Social Security Numbers as part of their jobs, so it would be particularly easy for them to commit identify theft. The US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform highlights this problem in a report which found that “the main concern for consumers is the heightened risk of identity theft and financial loss from a poorly managed outreach campaign.” Because of the lack of a background check provision in the federal law, unless states enact their own laws, it is possible that healthcare navigators hire a convicted felon—including one with a fraud conviction—to work as an adviser.

Ohio’s proposed legislation seeks to solve this problem by requiring healthcare navigators to complete a background check, certification, and training through the Ohio Department of Insurance. The exact details of the type of background check that will be used, its scope, and the types of convictions that will be considered grounds for denying employment are unclear.

Ideally, the state would be using a national background check product rather than a state-based one, as this would enable the discovery of an individual’s complete public criminal history. For example, a tool like US OneSEARCH from backgroundchecks.com could be used. This national background check tool compares a name and date of birth against a collection of over 450 million public criminal records taken from state and local databases across the country. It returns its results almost instantly and is very affordable.

When it comes to reviewing the results of the background checks, one could consider reviewing cases for individuals convicted of fraud, identify theft, grand theft, or a violent crime that might pose a risk to consumers as a healthcare navigator. Sears says that if the measure is passed, healthcare navigators in Ohio will be required to meet many of the same standards as insurance agents and brokers, thus providing improved consumer protection.