How Sterling Does Physician Screening

Using the following processes, the professionals at John Sterling Associates LLC give you the most thorough physician compliance screening available.  Accuracy, consistency and the ability to adapt to your data are the keys to our success.

Client prepares the data
The client develops a list of physicians to be screened.  We can screen a) non-employee physicians with admitting privileges or b) physicians without admitting privileges who refer patients to your hospital for tests etc.

Since dates of birth, SSN and other comparative data are often not available for these two groups, we suggest you supply us with any UPIN and state medical license number data in your records.

Physicians employed by your hospital (e.g. hospitalists) are usually included in your screening of employees.  See personnel screening.

Both federal databases are downloaded for comparison
Our screener obtains current downloads from the OIG and GSA databases.  The GSA database also contains the SDN List.

It is important that the most recent data be used for screening.  The OIG database is reconstituted once a month, usually about the 10th.  The GSA database is modified periodically throughout the month by GSA.

The client and federal lists are prepared for comparison
Using sophisticated proprietary techniques, our screener extracts first names and last names of excluded persons from the two federal databases, along with other pertinent identifying information on these persons.  Client data is similarly processed to extract first names, last names and other pertinent identifying information.

Possible name variants are added to the lists
The federal lists employ alphabetical matching, so looking at possible variants in client data and in the federal lists is important to avoid missing matches.  For example, "Ted" is also checked as "Theodore".  Likewise, surname variants arising from marriage, divorce and remarriage as well as cultural surname differences are also generated for comparison.  We cast the widest possible net to catch possible matches.

Comparing the client and federal lists
The client and OIG lists are then compared through computer analysis to reveal possible name matches.  Thus, the client's "John Smith" is tentatively matched to the OIG list's "John Smith".  At this point, this is simply a match of first names and last names, but it is not yet a positive identification of an excluded physician .  A similar comparison is also made between the client and GSA lists.  All these tentative matches generally amount to about 5% of the names on the client's list.  A client with 3,000 personnel therefore could expect about 150 tentative matches.

Researching tentative matches
These tentative matches are then researched by our screening staff to determine whether each match is real or not.

The GSA database may also be queried on-line for additional details regarding other possible name matches.  The screener may contact the listing federal agency for details on the exclusion.

Additional identifying information such as UPINs and state medical license numbers is also utilized to assess the validity of tentative matches.  Sterling senior staff weigh all of these data and determine the final exclusion status of the tentative matches.

Reports are prepared for the client
Each physician on the client's list has a line entry on a report showing the final assessment of that physician's exclusion status.  Each is labeled as "Not Excluded" or "Excluded".  Reasons for the assessment are listed.

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