| Policy Name: | Medical Information Confidentiality |
|---|---|
| Scope: | All Staff and Associates |
| Revision Date: | March 23, 2021 |
| Last Review Date: | June 15, 2023 |
Reliant strives to protect the privacy of its employees’ medical information to the greatest possible extent. To that end, we provide the following guidelines regarding the confidentiality of medical information:
- “Medical information” is any information, data, or documentation relating to an employee’s mental or physical condition. The term includes, but is not limited to, oral, written, or digital information concerning an employee’s mental or physical condition; medical records; dental records; disability records; workers’ compensation records; medical leave records; genetic information; health insurance information; missionary trip applications; and/or information concerning visits or payments to any health care professional, hospital, emergency room, or other type of short- or long-term health care facility.
- Any medical information concerning employees will be maintained in separate, confidential medical files apart from regular personnel records. Only authorized employees may ever have access to such files.
- Employees are hereby notified that medical information concerning employees is absolutely confidential under state and federal laws and may not be discussed at any time with any person under any circumstances unless an employee needs to do so in order to carry out his or her job duties, or unless the person discussing the information is talking or otherwise communicating with the subject of the information at that person’s invitation.
- Any employee who is found to have discussed medical information about another employee with anyone else in violation of this policy, or who is found to have released such information without authorization, will be subject to severe disciplinary action, up to and possibly including immediate termination from employment. In addition, state and federal laws may subject such an employee to both civil and criminal action in a court of law.
8 Comments
Julie Thomas
Barb Seckler Matt Elkins Kerry Housley Dave Meldrum-Green - Because for one reason or another, we gather medical information about employees beyond what is typically done for benefits reasons (e.g. when they participate in mission trips and as a practice we ask for pertinent medical conditions), we need a medical confidentiality policy. I've reviewed our existing policies, and don't see anything like that. Here is a version that was provided by Cantey Hanger for us. Will you please review and provide comments? Or if we already have something like this, please let me know.
Julie Thomas
Sarah Swann- Here is the draft Medical Information Confidentiality Policy. I'd like others to review it (see comment above) before publishing. And you can review it as well and provide comments.
Matt Elkins
This looks and sounds great. I do not know if we have anything quite like this. I think Cori might use something in international though. Might be worth it to check in with her.
Barb Seckler
Julie ThomasIn theory I love this "Any medical information concerning employees will be maintained in separate, confidential medical files apart from regular personnel records. Only authorized employees may ever have access to such files." but we currently do store medical info in folders with other confidential info. That's a long known problem for how the files are stored. Some solutions have been suggested but we have no final solution. Dynamics was maybe going to solve as we might store enrollment and medical files in Dynamics (that was thrown out as a possible solution)? However, no solution has been finalized to split that info out and specially restrict it to just ES seeing it. So anyone with access to confidential folders can see this info (more than people handling insurance stuff). I'm not sure I feel comfortable saying we do that if we don't in current practice. We absolutely don't use teams etc to "chat" about personal medical stuff but if enrollment forms are included in that description then that is also chatted about - like for example - what coverage someone elected etc. Julie Thomas I can mark this "reviewed" but then Kerry HousleyI think we should know this is inconsistent with how files are currently stored and keep pressing into a solution that's agreed upon and compliant with the policy. With Dynamics delayed we may need an interim solution that's in line with this policy.
Julie Thomas
Barb SecklerI realized that this was an issue. Once we get the new HR Compliance Coordinator hired and onboarding, I'd like this (moving medical info away from personnel file) to be a project that is top of that person's priority list. So while our list of authorized employees who have access to the folders is likely too long, the information is technically under "lock and key" and is a separate folder...unfortunately it's just within the general folder.
Dave Meldrum-Green
Julie Thomas Great job with this policy....just one question...how will we determine who is authorized to have access?
And also, is this part of the training we'll give all Central Employees that they can't do this..... 4. Any employee who is found to have discussed medical information about another employee with anyone else in violation of this policy, or who is found to have released such information without authorization.... Could this also require some basic training in teaching our Central folks what is "medical information"?
Julie Thomas
Dave Meldrum-Green, you can see in my comment above to Barb that this will be a top priority for me once we get the Compliance Coordinator hired. We'll update any procedures and standards we have around access to the files (working with Ops Leaders, of course). That should be part of the general training for new Central Staff or at least departmental training.
Julie Thomas
Barb Seckler Kerry Housley - Can you approve again? I actually took out the line about speaking with the HR Compliance Officer or HR Administrator in #3. If this policy applies to the Field, it's unlikely that they will go to me if they have a concern about a fellow employee's medical condition. They are more likely to go to a leader in their ministry. And that's not really the spirit of the policy. The spirit of it is for Reliant to protect confidential medical information and PHI of its employees.
However, #3 does still contain that employees should only discuss medical information (as defined in #1) with others if it is part of their job duties or if it is with the subject. We have some training that we could do with leaders on how to discuss (or not discuss) physical and mental health conditions of missionaries.