Free ways to run an OIG exclusion check
Checked October 2026
A complete check of one name means the HHS OIG LEIE, SAM.gov, and the Medicaid list of every state the person or business has worked in. All of it is public and free. The cost is in the number of places you have to look, and these are the free tools that cover some or all of them.
HHS OIG exclusions search
The official LEIE, the federal list of individuals and entities excluded from Medicare, Medicaid and other federal health care programs. It is the authority, and it is where a name match can be confirmed against an SSN or EIN.
Where it stops: It searches the LEIE only: no SAM.gov and no state Medicaid lists.
SAM.gov
Exclusions across every federal agency, including debarments and OFAC sanctions. Checking it is part of what 42 CFR 455.436 requires of state Medicaid agencies.
Where it stops: It is a separate search from the LEIE, and most of its records have no health care connection, so a match needs reading carefully.
Each state's own Medicaid list
Providers a state has excluded or terminated from its own Medicaid program, some of whom appear on no federal list.
Where it stops: 43 of the 50 states and DC publish one, in formats from spreadsheets to PDFs to search pages, so checking several states means visiting several sites one name at a time.
OpenSanctions
A sanctions data project that publishes datasets for many state Medicaid exclusion lists alongside its global sanctions data.
Where it stops: Free for non-commercial use; a business needs a licence. Its December 2024 write-up lists several states it could not access.
opensanctions.org/articles/2024-12-17-us-medicaid-exclusions
Harper
One search across the HHS OIG LEIE, SAM.gov and the state lists of all 43 states and DC that publish one, with each list's record count and last read date published. Free, with no account.
Where it stops: Each source is read weekly, not in real time. No CMS Preclusion List, Medicare Opt-Out or Death Master File, and no managed monitoring. Confirm any match with the official source before acting.
Paid services
Paid vendors add monitoring on a schedule, records of each run, and lists beyond exclusions, such as the CMS Preclusion List and Medicare Opt-Out. They differ widely in how many state lists they say they cover; the comparison puts their own claims side by side.
Harper’s state count is as of October 14, 2026.