A driver lied on the job application: what to do when a record or credential turns up later

When a driver’s application turns out to be false, take the driver off trips, confirm the facts from the source record, and decide under a written standard before you act. NEMT raises the stakes, because brokers and payers disqualify drivers by record, and a payer can ask for money back on trips a disqualified driver ran. The cases look alike: a conviction left off the form, a license suspension nobody mentioned, a CPR card that turns out to be fake, or work history that does not hold up. The steps are the same for each, and they run below in order. For how to run the discipline itself, see the driver discipline guide, and for the separation steps, see how to fire a NEMT driver.

Can you fire a driver for lying on the application?

Usually yes, if the application asked a lawful question, the answer was false, and the truth matters to the job. Federal law does not otherwise stand in the way: the Labor Department says a termination that is not based on discrimination, protected whistleblower status or a complaint under a law it enforces is subject only to a private contract or a labor contract. The limits that matter are in your own paperwork, your state’s rules on what you were allowed to ask, and how consistently you act.

Three things make the decision hold up:

• A signed statement on the application. The driver application template ends with a certification that every entry is true and complete. Add a line saying a false answer can end employment.
• A written standard for what counts as serious. A hidden disqualifying conviction or a forged certificate is serious in NEMT. A wrong month on a past job may not be.
• The same result for every driver in the same position. A standard applied to one driver and not the next is how a clean firing becomes a discrimination claim.

What should you do first when you find the discrepancy?

Take the driver off trips, get the record from its source, and ask the driver to explain before you decide. In order:

1. Move the driver off the board. Some programs decide this for you. MTM’s provider agreement (the January 2023 form), for example, keeps off its trips any driver with a suspended, expired or revoked license, and any driver with a pending charge that would disqualify on conviction (sections 5.J and 5.I). A removal while you check is not a punishment. The guide to suspending a driver pending investigation covers pay and length.
2. Pull the primary record. For a conviction, the county courthouse. The EEOC’s guidance says courthouse records typically give the most complete criminal history. For a license, the licensing agency. For a certificate, the school or issuing body that can confirm it. For work history, the former employer. The guidance also cites a 1999 task force finding that, in a sample of 82,601 applicants, a name check wrongly indicated a criminal record for about 5.5 percent.
3. Ask the driver in writing and wait for the answer. In the EEOC’s own example of an employer that suspended an employee after an arrest and ended up in the clear, the employer gave the employee a chance to explain what happened. Write the question so it quotes the application and the record side by side.
4. Decide under the written standard. Compare it to how you handled earlier cases.
5. Write down the file. Keep what the application said, what the record shows, where you got it, the date, who decided, and the driver’s reply.

Is it really a lie?

Not always. A driver may be right to leave out something you could not lawfully ask about or use, or may have made an honest mistake. Before you call it a lie, check these cases:

• Sealed or expunged records. The EEOC’s guidance notes that several states let people deny sealed or expunged records, and that such records can still appear in a background check, which can make the person look dishonest.
• State arrest-record laws. California and New York, for example, limit what an employer may ask an applicant about arrests that did not lead to conviction and about sealed or dismissed matters, and New York lets a person answer as if a closed arrest did not occur. The arrest guide sets out both statutes.
• Medical questions before an offer. The EEOC says employers generally cannot ask disability-related questions until after a conditional offer. A no on a form that should not have asked is not a lie to act on.
• Honest errors. A wrong date, a former job title, or a mistyped license number should be put to the driver before anyone calls it a falsehood.

Check your own state’s rules before you call an answer false. The guide to hiring drivers with a criminal record covers fair chance laws in more detail.

Which Fair Credit Reporting Act steps apply?

If a screening company’s report is part of why you are acting, the order is fixed. Before you decide, give the driver a copy of the report and the federal summary of consumer rights. After you act, send an adverse action notice (15 U.S.C. 1681b(b)(3)). The FTC says this applies when you reassign or terminate an employee, so it covers a report that comes back during a rescreen after hire. The pre-adverse action notice entry explains what each notice says, and the background check guide covers the report itself.

A different rule applies when an outside investigator you hired to look into suspected misconduct reports back. Section 1681a(y) treats those findings differently: after you take adverse action based on them, you must give the driver a summary of the nature and substance of what you relied on, though the sources of some of the information need not be disclosed. Ask counsel which route your facts follow before you act.

Do you have to tell your brokers?

Read each contract’s notice clause the day you find out, because the clocks run from immediate to ten business days. MTM’s agreement has the provider notify MTM right away of certain convictions and of any criminal charge or court proceeding involving a driver (section 2.R). Texas health plans require written notice within ten business days (UMCM 16.4, section 2520), and TennCare’s contract requires immediate notice (Attachment XI, A.8.3.9). The arrest guide sets out each clock.

A record you only just learned about may already be reportable, and none of these clauses says to wait for your own investigation to finish, so read the clause the day you find out. Notice and removal go together: a driver who stays on your roster after a broker’s rule bars them puts every trip that follows at risk of going unpaid.

What happens to the trips the driver already ran?

Payers can take back payment for trips run by a driver who was not eligible, so list those trips before anyone else does. Three public rules say so plainly, and New York’s audit report shows the same exposure:

• Texas. The NEMT handbook says HHSC will recoup payment from the plan for services determined by the state or a federal agency to have been provided by a driver not eligible to provide them. It adds that services by an ineligible person are subject to recoupment.
• Mississippi. The Division of Medicaid’s rule says the broker must recoup funds paid for services by a driver who fails the required fingerprint check.
• MTM. The standard agreement says MTM may not pay for trips by uncredentialed drivers (section 2.N).
• New York. The Office of the Medicaid Inspector General’s 2025 annual report lists improperly licensed drivers among the common findings in its transportation investigations, and says the HHS-OIG audit findings that its transportation audits followed up on included non-compliance with driver qualification requirements. In 2025 OMIG finalized nine transportation audits with more than $3.1 million in overpayments.

Then do the review in four steps:

1. Fix the start date for each payer. For a forged certificate, it is the hire date. For a conviction, the date that payer’s rule would have disqualified the driver.
2. Pull the trips. List every trip the driver ran from that date, by payer.
3. Match each trip to its payer’s rule for a driver with the true record.
4. Take the list to counsel or your compliance contact before deciding what to do. If Medicaid money paid for those trips, ask whether 42 U.S.C. 1320a-7k(d) applies to you or to your broker. It requires a provider of services, supplier or Medicaid plan that has received an overpayment to report and return it within 60 days of identifying it, and an overpayment still held after that counts as an obligation under the False Claims Act.

Do not delete or change old trip records while you review them.

What if you find out after you already fired the driver?

Evidence of wrongdoing found after a firing can limit what the driver recovers, but it does not undo an unlawful firing. In McKennon v. Nashville Banner Publishing Co., 513 U.S. 352 (1995), an employee who said she was fired because of her age testified in a deposition that she had copied confidential company documents, and the employer, which assumed the discrimination for purposes of its motion, argued that ended her case. The Court held that such after-acquired evidence does not bar all relief. As a general rule, neither reinstatement nor front pay is appropriate, and back pay is counted from the discharge to the date the employer learned of the wrongdoing. The employer must first show the wrongdoing was serious enough that it would have fired the employee on those grounds alone had it known.

The Court’s wording covers wrongdoing in general, and whether a false application fits is a question for counsel. The standard is also why the written rule matters. Showing you would have fired anyone for the same conduct is much easier when the rule and the earlier cases are on paper.

What if the false information is the driver’s identity or work papers?

Treat it as a Form I-9 problem, not only a discipline problem. If a driver tells you that the name, date of birth or Social Security number on the form is substantially different from what was given before, and cannot show evidence linking the new information to the old, USCIS says to complete a new Form I-9, write the original hire date in the Section 2 first-day-of-employment space, and attach it to the old form. Federal law also makes it unlawful to keep employing a person you know is not authorized to work (8 U.S.C. 1324a(a)(2)). The guide to I-9 reverification and the I-9 audit guide cover what comes next.

Listing every trip a driver ran

The trip log in HealthRide’s reports shows the driver, vehicle, addresses, scheduled and actual times, and GPS-verified miles for each leg. Export the period under review as a spreadsheet or PDF and filter it by driver, and the trips that driver ran are listed for counsel or a payer.