Confidentiality of Medical Information

njjel

An administration employee is going out on disability leave and has requeted that the reason for the leave be kept from her immediate supervisor. The supervisor has approached me and asked why she is going out on leave and thus far I have replied the need for the leave is major surgery. Am I correct to keep the exact reason from the supervisor?

Hatchetman

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 03-07-02 AT 12:13PM (CST)[/font][p]On what basis are you not providing the supervisor with the reason when the you and your supervisor (the company) know it? The employee's request? What was the employee's explanation?

It seems to me that we ask supervisors to be responsible and to be confidential. After all, the supervisor writes evaluations and retains all sorts of "confidential information." If the supervisor has a need to know, then it seems to me you should inform the supervisor of the reason. Otherwise, you're asking the supervisor to supervise with one hand tied behind her or his back.

What signal are you sending to the supervisor if you don't keep him or her fully informed? You're not trusted? You have the responsibility to supervise but not the authority?

Who makes the decision to approve the leave? If the supervisor is involved, and the supervisor should be, then I think the supervisor is in a position of needing to know

Don D

A prudent (and legally defensible) response to the supervisor would be "Jane will be on an approved medical leave for approximately seven days". If the supervisor is indeed effective and involved with his or her staff, he probably would have been trusted by the employee enough for her to have confided in him or her. On the other hand, hopefully more and more employees are trusting personnel enough nowadays to confide totally in the HR Office and you cannot afford to breach that trust, ethically or legally. I sense that the supervisor is just snooping. If he questions you beyond your 'strictly by the book' response that I offered above, play a bit of hardball and say, "You know I'm not allowed to get into that." If the supervisor continues to pry, its time to be frank. These might work: "If you were out on a medical leave for something you considered personal and confidential, how would you feel if I released that information to another person?" or "Now John, really, are you and I going to co-sign the note when an employee sues me, you and the company for tacky handling of her personal medical information?" If the supervisor's questioning goes beyond the first question he asks you, I would question his maturity or, in fact, his suitability for the job. The only things the supervisor has a 'right to know' is when she will be out and when she'll return, and, upon her return, whether or not she'll be performing at 100%. I can almost guarantee you that if this is a case of snooping, the information you release to this supervisor WILL NOT stop with just him knowing the employee's condition. This is really no different from an employee turning in a sick leave request to go to the doctor for tests or whatever, and the supervisor asking, "Going to the doctor, huh. What for?"

AnaFL

I completely agree with Don on this one.

Ana

Anita

I agree also with Don. If the employee had wanted his/her supervisor to know the details he/she would have told them. I speak from experience, when I was going to go out on MLA to have my leg amputated I really didn't want anyone else to know, because I wasn't up to answering their questions before I left. However, before I returned to work I wanted it to be known so that it wouldn't be such a surprise when I returned to work in a wheelchair and some modifications to the building needed to be completed. It worked out very well this way for me. The main thing is to remember that all that was needed to be told was that it was a major surgery and the length of time to be missed, this is what I told my fellow employees. When they asked (and yes some did) I just responded that I was going to have major surgery and that I would be back in 3 months. Medical information is confidential and should be treated as such.

Don D

This is the last time I'll weigh in on this one. You won't find this in any HR publication or hear it in any HR seminar; but, my 83 year old mother used to have a pat answer for all snoopy questioners, no matter the subject. Her answer? "If you'll forgive me for not answering that question, I'll forgive you for asking it." Seemed to work for her. I try it often myself.

ritaanz

This is in responce to Don. My mother's was "It's on a need to know basis. When you need to know, I'll tell you"

Rockie

It is absolutely none of a supervisor's business about an employee's medical condition. Being a supervisor does not give anyone a license to pry into an employee's personal business; I totally agree that once trust has been breached, it is very difficult (or impossible) to get it back.