mightymoose_22
Member
What is the name of your state? California
Hope I am in the right forum:
An employee of a pharmacy visits the doctor for a health problem and receives prescription medication.
The employee takes the prescription to a different branch of the pharmacy she works for so that fellow employees do not become aware of her health problem.
For reasons still unknown, the district manager of this pharmacy chain accessed the employee's record regarding her prescription and entered notes into it informing other employees that they are not to refill the prescription... in short, the notations made it sound as if the employee was abusing prescription drugs.
Any employee that accessed the record when the prescription was to be refilled would see these notes.
Also, a tthe time the notes were made, the district manager apparently spoke with the local branch manager, and word trickled down to other employees... in short, the employee's attempt to keep her medical issues private was circumvented by a higher ranking manager in the chain.
Do the records kept at the pharmacy qualify as protected, private medical records?
Does an employee of a pharmacy have a reasonable expectation to privacy of the medical records?
Typically, this information would not be considered part of the personnel file and should not be viewed by anyone, correct?
If employer/employee laws do not apply, what about the expectation of privacy of the customer?
The employee went to a different branch expecting privacy and now all coworkers know of her problem. So far she has not really suffered any kind of damage, other than that her coworkers now know of her private medical problem. All she is seeking is for the notes in the file to be removed and that she be allowed to receive her perscriptions through this pharmacy (as an employee she gets a discount).
Anyway... I'm sure you get the gist... the employer got in to what is believed to be confidential information and leaked it out to the other employees.
She is going to contact the HR department and discuss it with them and hopefully it will be taken care of internally.
Ultimately, the question here is... what laws may apply to this type of privacy violation, and is this a matter she can seek damages for if the employer fails to correct it?
Hope I am in the right forum:
An employee of a pharmacy visits the doctor for a health problem and receives prescription medication.
The employee takes the prescription to a different branch of the pharmacy she works for so that fellow employees do not become aware of her health problem.
For reasons still unknown, the district manager of this pharmacy chain accessed the employee's record regarding her prescription and entered notes into it informing other employees that they are not to refill the prescription... in short, the notations made it sound as if the employee was abusing prescription drugs.
Any employee that accessed the record when the prescription was to be refilled would see these notes.
Also, a tthe time the notes were made, the district manager apparently spoke with the local branch manager, and word trickled down to other employees... in short, the employee's attempt to keep her medical issues private was circumvented by a higher ranking manager in the chain.
Do the records kept at the pharmacy qualify as protected, private medical records?
Does an employee of a pharmacy have a reasonable expectation to privacy of the medical records?
Typically, this information would not be considered part of the personnel file and should not be viewed by anyone, correct?
If employer/employee laws do not apply, what about the expectation of privacy of the customer?
The employee went to a different branch expecting privacy and now all coworkers know of her problem. So far she has not really suffered any kind of damage, other than that her coworkers now know of her private medical problem. All she is seeking is for the notes in the file to be removed and that she be allowed to receive her perscriptions through this pharmacy (as an employee she gets a discount).
Anyway... I'm sure you get the gist... the employer got in to what is believed to be confidential information and leaked it out to the other employees.
She is going to contact the HR department and discuss it with them and hopefully it will be taken care of internally.
Ultimately, the question here is... what laws may apply to this type of privacy violation, and is this a matter she can seek damages for if the employer fails to correct it?