Medical Excuse Slips
NCWVCAA
3 Posts
I have been trying to "clean things up" around here and get rid of as many things as possible. Something that is taking up much needed space now is medical excuse slips. We have them from years and years ago. I have tried to find out if there are any retention laws but cannot find any. Does anyone know how long you should keep these on file? Or even if you have to keep them at all?
Comments
I agree with HRDir1...it is going to depend on the reason you have the medical slip.
Also don't forget ADA reasons and possibly payroll reasons if you require the employee to have the medical slip to get paid. OSHA also has longer standards if certain substances exist in the working environment (asbestos, vinyl chloride, carcinogens, etc).
If you are getting them strictly for an attendance program, you would not have to keep them as long as in other instances. I would probably keep a minimum of 2-3 years because of possible wage claims. That way you could prove you didn't have one for a day you didn't pay, just as an example, because you can prove you paid for those that did have a slip.
Also don't forget ADA reasons and possibly payroll reasons if you require the employee to have the medical slip to get paid. OSHA also has longer standards if certain substances exist in the working environment (asbestos, vinyl chloride, carcinogens, etc).
If you are getting them strictly for an attendance program, you would not have to keep them as long as in other instances. I would probably keep a minimum of 2-3 years because of possible wage claims. That way you could prove you didn't have one for a day you didn't pay, just as an example, because you can prove you paid for those that did have a slip.[/quote]
Ditto. I would not destroy old records without a very clear understanding of why they were gathered.
Wow ! It's been years since I've heard of anyone employing such archaic practices!
You do not normally need to know the prescription information. IF there is a problem, the MRO will contact the employee (for privacy issues, you should not have the info!) I used to work for an employer who thought he, too, might be above the law. Not a good situation from my point of view.
IF your employer demands you keep this information, you should take every precaution to store it in accordance with HIPPA. Only those with a need to know should ever have access to it and it should always be used for only valid employment reasons (and certainly not for what I suspect may have been the case.)
Good luck to you!!
We give the notes back to the employee. I don't want to store them and I normally have no use for the additional information.
When we drug test someone and they show positive for anything, we ask that they speak with the testing facility and provide them sufficient information to explain the results.
We have had cases where people were abusing their legally prescribed medication, so the mere presence of a prescription doesn't mean much unless you are qualified to fully interpret the results of the screening. If you have medical people on staff who can do that, then you may be in better shape. But if you don't have any medical people on staff, then you probably dont' have anybody qualified to determine whether or not prescription medication affected their drug screenings. Shove it all off on the drug testing facility where it's doctor to doctor. Another concern is if you have a talk with the drug screening facility and discuss the employee's prescriptions: do you have a release to do so from the employee?