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, with a source-and-date stamp on every match.
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, state Medicaid lists, OIG corporate-integrity agreements, and CMS civil money penalties in one pass. |
| State Medicaid exclusions | Each state portal, checked by hand one at a time — if it gets checked at all. | State Medicaid exclusion lists (e.g., Pennsylvania Medicheck, North Carolina) screened alongside the federal lists. |
| 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. |
| Monthly re-screen | A recurring manual task that slips the month a roster grows. | OIG LEIE re-ingested monthly ( exclusions); each source on its native cadence. |
| Roster scale | One provider at a time, by copy and paste. | A full roster screened in one pass via API, MCP server, or bulk export. |
| Match provenance | A screenshot, with no record of which list, version, or date. | Source list, version, and snapshot date stamped on every match. |
| Point-in-time evidence | Hard to show what a list said on the date a provider was cleared. | As-of screening — re-derive the result the list would have returned on a past date. |
| Audit trail | A folder of dated CSVs and screenshots, assembled after the fact. | An attestation chain plus a downloadable evidence artifact, produced at screen time. |
| 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. Every Fonteum claim ties to a dated, named source.
What a do-it-yourself screen leaves uncovered
One list, run by hand, is a floor — not the picture
Monthly OIG LEIE screening is the federal baseline, 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 screening every exclusion source on a fixed cadence.
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. An NPI-resolved match against dated exclusion sources, wrapped in an attestation chain, is the evidence a manual lookup does not produce.
Monthly screening at roster scale is the real burden
Screening one provider is easy; screening a few thousand every month, across five federal and state sources, by hand, is the task that quietly lapses. An API or bulk export turns a recurring manual chore into a single dated, repeatable pass.
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 OIG + SAM + state Medicaid screening with a signed attestation.
Common questions
- Why not just screen the OIG LEIE myself?
- You can, and monthly OIG LEIE screening is the federal baseline. 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 source every month.
- 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 record: whether every source was checked, whether each provider was matched on NPI rather than name, and whether the result is dated and re-derivable when an auditor asks.
- How does Fonteum match providers — name or NPI?
- On NPI. Each provider is resolved against the 6.8M+ NPIs in the CMS NPPES registry, and the basis of every exclusion match is recorded. Matching on NPI rather than name avoids the false clears and false hits that a manual name-against-CSV check produces when two providers share a name.
- What does an audit-ready screening result include?
- It names the source list, its version, and the date; identifies the provider by NPI rather than name alone; and ships as an evidence artifact backed by an attestation chain. A manual screen that ends in a yes-or-no screenshot, with no list version or date, leaves that trail to reconstruct later.
Screen your full roster against every exclusion source.
Run a free full-roster screen, 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 a free full-roster screen.
- /data/oig-leie → The OIG LEIE exclusion dataset and refresh cadence.
- /sources → Every federal and state source family with tier and cadence.