HIPAA & informing supervisors of 'ee illness

Caroliso

I haven't seen this situation addressed anywhere, any help appreciated...

We have an employee who has been out since March with a "mild" stroke that is in the process of being diagnosed. We just got a call today that exploratory surgery will be required to diagnose further, and it's uncertain when she will return. We advised her to notify her supervisor and luckily she has done so but it occured to us in HR that we weren't sure what our obligation was re privacy and notifying her supervisor in the event a) she neglected to call her supervsior or b) she, or anyone, was in a position where they were unable to make any calls. Is there a part of the regs that covers this? Should we be drafting some kind of waiver for all new hires that covers this situation? Are there other HR-to-other-employee situations that we haven't thought of?

Thanks, Carol

Don D

HIPAA notwithstanding, supervisors needn't be told details of employee medical absences, ever. All they need to know is that the period of absence is being continued. The supervisor has no need for the information regarding the upcoming surgery or the details of the stroke analysis by the doctor.

HIPAA has no relationship to common sense HR practices and did not come along to help us establish that. But, it does serve as a battering ram for those of us who didn't have sound information-giving practices in place already.

I'm sitting in daily staff meetings at my new company listening to various department heads talk about John's hearing test, Mary's gall bladder and Julio being out an additional week or so for his comp injury. I thought I would give them a few weeks to adjust to my presence at the table before I tell them this practice is illegal. I want to prolong the honeymoon awhile longer before bringing my proctoscope into the meeting.

Hatchetman

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 05-01-03 AT 03:47PM (CST)[/font][p]Depending on your adminstrative apparatus and who has responsibility for the decision-making, HR need not be told. If the decision to approve leaves and approve reasonable accommodaitons fall onto line management, there is no reason to tell HR.

So, look at your decision-makers and let the individual who has to make the decidiosn on whether to grant a leave or deal with reasonable accommodation know of the situaiton. If tha'ts HR fine. If that's the line manager or the line supervisor, fine. But don't automtacially exclude line management from knowing if there is a need for them to know just as you wouldn't exclude the pappropriate person in HR from knowing if there was a need for that person to know.

valentine

Right you are Hatchetman:

In my company it is the Department Head the staff person goes to first. They then come to me for the paperwork. I think the persons DH would need to know how long they will be out in order to work around their absence. Usually, by the time they've come to me, they've already told their DH all about their situation.

LindaS

I agree with Don regarding the supevisor not needing the specifics of the reasons for an employee being out. This would fall under the "minimum necessary" provision of HIPAA and I can't think of any reason a supervisor would need anything more than - EE will be out for XX amount of time. As far as someone else calling in for the employee, the liability of releasing PHI to you would fall on the individual giving you the information, not on you or the company.

Don - I wish you well in your upcoming challenges. I am in the process of determining the "minimum necessary" for my employer and am in the same boat wherein employee health information is shared WAAAAYYY too freely. I'm sure both of us will have quite a few "noses bent out of shape" when we begin enforcing these new regulations.

Caroliso

Thanks, everyone. From your responses it's clear that even we, diligent HR staff that we are, have been a little loose with the information in a company that is fairly small and in which employees discuss their own health conditions freely, e-mails float about their and other's latest surgeries, etc. Will need to think about where to begin to clamp down on the info but it's clear we need to do it right away.

Carol