About this episode
Pamela Mack, owner of the consumer reporting agency Occuscreen, has spent roughly 15 years screening NEMT drivers, and NEMT now accounts for about half the company's business. The package is dictated by the state contract or the broker rather than the screening firm: a seven-year felony and misdemeanor search, a sex offender registry check, a motor vehicle report, and a drug panel the contract specifies. Once a driver signs the FCRA disclosure electronically, results usually land in one to three business days, stretching only where a researcher has to visit a courthouse in person.
Key takeaways
- Requirements come from the state contract or the broker, never from the screening company. Mack says providers arrive with the requirement already written and Occuscreen configures the package to match it.
- Skip fingerprinting unless a contract mandates it. FBI prints mostly surface arrests, which cannot legally drive a hiring decision, while court records return actual convictions inside the reporting window.
- Written consent is not optional under the FCRA. Taking verbal consent to save time is exactly what pulls a provider into an individual claim or a driver class action suit.
- Look for Professional Background Screening Association accreditation. With thousands of screening firms findable online, Mack treats PBSA as the fastest proof a vendor keeps reproving its processes are compliant.
- Checks run on name, date of birth and address history rather than a social security number, which is why results take days instead of the instant lookup most owners expect.
Chapters
- 0:00 Introduction
- 1:00 Overview of Occuscreen
- 2:29 Types of NEMT driver screenings
- 4:42 How to ensure the screening is right
- 7:03 Steps/process of doing screenings
- 10:50 Timeline for getting screenings done
- 12:10 Difference between fingerprinting and screening
- 14:17 Risks of not following screening regulations
- 17:22 Interesting stories of driver screenings
- 19:20 What businesses does Occuscreen serve?
- 22:32 RUN BAMBI RUN!!
