The True Purpose of Sanction Screening: How Businesses Benefit from Strong Checks

A single gap in your sanction screening program could lead to heavy financial fines, exclusion from federal healthcare programs, and lasting reputational damage. Yet most organizations still see checks as a compliance “tick box”—rather than a powerful business imperative.

This article aims to rebalance the scales and promote the true purpose of sanction screening: to protect patients, employees, and organizations from harmful individuals and vendors. 

What is Sanction Screening?

Sanction screening is the systematic process of checking exclusion lists to verify that individuals and vendors are safe to work within your organization. While it is commonly seen as part of the background check process, it should actually be an ongoing process. This is because exclusion lists, such as the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) List of Excluded Individuals and Entities (LEIE) or the General Services Administration’s (GSA) System for Award Management (SAM) exclusions list, are regularly updated.

Further Reading: 

• Gain a comprehensive overview of how sanction screening works
• Identify the most relevant exclusion lists for healthcare companies
• Discover the most common challenges related to sanction screening
• Explore OIG guidelines for physician screening checks

What is the Purpose of Sanction Screening?

Sanction screening is a central part of most healthcare compliance programs—and for good reason. Regularly checking the OIG’s LEIE is essential for maintaining compliance and may be considered as a “risk-based” control for reducing regulatory risk. However, this is just the baseline. The true value of running regular checks goes well beyond compliance requirements. 

The “Standard” Argument for Sanction Screening

Entities featured on exclusion lists are typically guilty of serious offences, from false claims to patient abuse. Failing to undertake proper due diligence and bringing such dangerous entities into your organization is therefore considered negligent, and organizations are routinely held liable.

As previously mentioned, the consequences of being found to work with excluded entities include:

• Financial Penalties: Recent cases have seen hiring a single excluded individual produce six-figure fines.
• Reputational Harm: From negative media coverage to lost trust with patients, the reputational harm often sticks with organizations for years.
• Lost Revenue: Failing to comply with exclusion lists, like the OIG’s LEIE, can lead to exclusion from Medicare or other health plans, leading to a loss of patients and revenue.

However, sanction screening is not only about avoiding negative outcomes; it can also provide active benefits that go beyond ensuring compliance.

Strategic Benefits Beyond Regulatory Compliance

The right sanction screening process can deliver three strategic benefits for healthcare organizations:

1. Protect Supply Chains

Healthcare supply chains are complex, and working with an excluded vendor may cause significant downstream complications. Replacing vendors is not always simple, so proactive sanction screening to avoid integrating non-compliant partners is crucial to avoid logistical problems and operational risk. 

2. Increase Partner Confidence

Compliance is a key consideration for a range of prospective partners—from third-party vendors to financial investors. Robust screening processes demonstrate your dedication to protecting patients, staff, and operations. This builds trust and may give you a competitive advantage when seeking investment or partnerships.

3. Support a “Culture of Compliance”

Effective compliance programs require “buy-in” from employees—and that means you must show them how seriously ethics and regulations are taken within your organization. Effective sanction screening efforts can therefore help support and build a “culture of compliance,” which can make compliance easier and more cost-effective to maintain.

The challenge is that, in order to gain these benefits, your screening program must be highly efficient—and several common factors make this difficult for most compliance teams.

The Challenge of Sanction Screening: Moving Past Manual Checks

Every benefit cited above—including robust compliance—requires sanction screening to actually identify excluded entities. However, most screening programs are still run manually, which creates several bottlenecks:

• Wasted Resources: Manual checks take hours of effort that could be used on other high-value compliance tasks. Human error is also more likely, as the tedious, repetitive nature of the work may cause temporary lapses of attention.
• Overlooked Lists: While the majority of healthcare compliance teams check the LEIE and SAM, most miss other relevant exclusion lists such as TRICARE, the OFAC SDN, and more—creating clear gaps in their compliance posture.
• Validation Issues: Because sanction screening uses individual names, false positives are very common; potential matches, therefore, require extra effort to validate, which makes the process even more labor-intensive and time-consuming.

However, these problems can be solved with the right sanction screening software.

How Modern Technology Solves Legacy Screening Challenges

Automated software has proven to deliver seven clear benefits:

1. Eliminates Human Error

Manual checks can overlook sanctioned individuals due to typos or outdated records, leading to compliance violations. Automated systems ensure consistent accuracy across all screenings without data entry mistakes.

2. Handles Multiple Name Variations

Many individuals have multiple names that must all be checked; common names may appear frequently in lists but might not match the actual individual. Software efficiently processes all name variations, transliterations, and maiden names automatically.

3. Enables Continuous Monitoring

Lists are updated frequently—OIG monthly, GSA annually, and others ad-hoc—requiring regular checks rather than one-time screening. Automation ensures constant, ongoing screening with no room for lapses or oversights.

4. Consolidates Multiple Databases

Many databases use different identifiers, don’t permit batch searching, and checking them one name at a time is extremely time-consuming. Software integrates all federal and state lists into a single platform for unified searching.

5. Provides Instant Results

Manual screening delays can leave organizations exposed to compliance risks. Automated alert systems notify compliance teams immediately when new exclusions are identified.

6. Frees Staff Time

Automation frees up staff time, allowing them to focus on critical tasks rather than spending significant effort on manual screening processes. It reduces the massive time investment required to manage thousands of screenings.

7. Creates Audit-Ready Documentation

Automated solutions create an audit trail that can serve as a defense in legal proceedings. Tools maintain comprehensive, detailed logs, making it easy to generate reports demonstrating due diligence during audits.

Maintain Compliance and Gain a Strategic Advantage with Automated Screening

Compliance Resource Center offers robust sanction screening software that lets you screen all relevant lists with less effort—enabling more frequent scans and eliminating gaps in your screening program.

Our latest product updates deliver more robust protections and make life easier for compliance teams with:

• Simplified submission to reduce the manual burden on your team even further
• Improved tracking to view monthly screening activity with ease
• Automated alerts for new findings requiring validation

Want to make scaling sanction screening seamless in 2026?

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