Multi-source exclusion screening vs doing it yourself
Running the OIG LEIE by hand each month catches federally excluded providers, but it misses state Medicaid exclusions and SAM.gov debarments, leaves no dated trail, and breaks at roster scale. Fonteum screens the LEIE — active exclusions — alongside additional federal and state exclusion sources, NPI-resolved across providers where an exact NPI cross-reference exists. Returned matches expose available source, observation-date, and match-basis metadata; fields may be absent by source.
Published June 20, 2026 · Last reviewed June 2026 · Capability comparison — public facts only
From a monthly manual list check to defensible, multi-source screening
| Capability | Doing it yourself | Fonteum |
|---|---|---|
| Lists screened | Whatever you remember to pull — most often the OIG LEIE on its own, when there is time. | The OIG LEIE, SAM.gov exclusions, supported loaded state Medicaid lists, OIG corporate-integrity agreements, and CMS civil money penalties in one pass. Other states are not covered. |
| State Medicaid exclusions | Each state portal, checked by hand one at a time — if it gets checked at all. | The supported loaded state Medicaid exclusion lists (including Pennsylvania Medicheck and North Carolina) screened alongside the federal lists; other states not covered. |
| Identity matching | A name typed against a CSV — easy to clear the wrong person or miss the right one. | NPI-resolved across providers, with the match basis recorded. |
| Recurring checks | A recurring manual task that slips the month a roster grows. | The loaded OIG LEIE table contains exclusions from the source release dated 2026-06-30; other loaded observation dates vary by source. |
| Roster scale | One provider at a time, by copy and paste. | The free workflow checks the first 25 NPIs on screen. The $129 one-off certificate accepts up to 25 NPIs. |
| Match provenance | A screenshot, with no record of which list, version, or date. | Returned matches expose available source-list, version, and observation-date fields; metadata may be absent by source. |
| Point-in-time evidence | Hard to show what a list said on the date a provider was cleared. | Past-date reconstruction is limited to retained row history for UK sanctions, procurement awards, provenance claims, OFAC SDN, and UN sanctions; retain the dated response for other lists. |
| Audit trail | A folder of dated CSVs and screenshots, assembled after the fact. | The free result stays on screen without an artifact. The $129 one-off certificate produces PDF and JSON after account roster submission. |
| Cost of a miss | An excluded provider who bills a federal program exposes the organization to civil money penalties and repayment. | Breadth across exclusion sources plus dated, NPI-resolved evidence closes the gap a one-list manual check leaves open. |
Descriptions reflect the do-it-yourself screening pattern — pulling one or more public exclusion lists by hand — not any single vendor or service. The cited figures use named, dated sources; returned response metadata varies by source.
What a do-it-yourself screen leaves uncovered
One list, run by hand, is a floor — not the picture
OIG says monthly LEIE screening best minimizes potential liability, and the LEIE lists excluded providers. But a provider barred only by a state Medicaid program, or debarred federally on SAM.gov, still clears an LEIE-only check. Doing it yourself rarely means screening every list every month — and the gap is exactly where the exposure sits.
The cost of a miss is asymmetric
A manual screen costs an hour a month until it doesn't. If an excluded provider bills a federal health program, the organization faces civil money penalties and repayment of amounts paid — a downside that dwarfs the cost of checking the relevant sources on a documented schedule.
A clear result is only as good as its evidence
Compliance programs are judged on the trail, not the verdict. A name matched against a CSV and saved as a screenshot leaves the version-and-date question for an auditor to ask later. The free Fonteum result stays on screen; the $129 one-off certificate stores PDF and JSON artifacts in the customer's account after roster submission.
Screening at roster scale is the real burden
Screening one provider is easy; screening a large roster across several federal and state sources by hand is the task that quietly lapses. The free workflow checks the first 25 NPIs on demand and does not create monitoring.
Compare other ways to screen
Exclusion screening vs single-list checks →
Multi-source, NPI-resolved screening with match provenance vs checking one list.
Federal exclusion screening vs checking SAM.gov by hand →
Award-time, point-in-time exclusion evidence for contracting vs a manual SAM.gov lookup.
ProviderTrust alternative →
Self-serve screening for the first 25 NPIs, with a $129 one-off certificate option.
Common questions
- Why not just screen the OIG LEIE myself?
- You can, and OIG says monthly LEIE screening best minimizes potential liability. The problem is not the first list — it is the others. A provider barred only by a state Medicaid program, or debarred federally through SAM.gov, still passes an LEIE-only check, and a manual pass rarely covers every relevant source.
- Which exclusion lists does a manual LEIE check miss?
- An LEIE-only check misses SAM.gov federal debarments, state Medicaid exclusion lists such as Pennsylvania Medicheck and North Carolina, OIG corporate-integrity agreements, and CMS civil money penalties. Each is a separate exclusion or enforcement source with its own cadence, and a provider can appear on one without appearing on the LEIE.
- Isn't a monthly manual screen enough?
- Monthly cadence is the right cadence — the OIG recommends monthly LEIE screening. The weak point of a manual screen is not the cadence but the coverage and the retained record: whether the required sources were checked, whether an exact NPI cross-reference was available, and whether the dated response was saved for later review.
- How does Fonteum match providers — name or NPI?
- Fonteum uses an exact NPI cross-reference where the exclusion source supplies an NPI. Most LEIE rows do not. Other rows expose their available match basis and limitations; missing match metadata is not inferred, and an absent NPI match is not clearance.
- What does an audit-ready screening result include?
- The free result shows counts and matched-source breakdown on screen only. The $129 one-off certificate for up to 25NPIs stores PDF and JSON artifacts in the customer's account after roster submission. A manual screen that ends in a yes-or-no screenshot, with no list version or date, leaves that trail to reconstruct later.
Screen a starter roster against the currently loaded exclusion sources.
Run an on-demand screen for the first 25 NPIs, see the exclusion data at /data/oig-leie, or read how exclusion screening works at /screening.
- /solutions/exclusion-screening → The exclusion and sanctions screening use case, end to end.
- /screening → The statute-anchored guide plus an on-demand 25-NPI screen.
- /data/oig-leie → The OIG LEIE exclusion dataset and refresh cadence.
- /sources → Registered source-family catalog with available tier and cadence details.