At work the other day one of my employees informed me that her step-daughter works for the psychologists’ group where I am a patient.
How did she know this? Her SD came home and told her about it. Said employee stated that the SD always comes homes and talks about the patients, she just can’t mention their names.
Suddenly I feel like after they close the doors they’re sitting there in the lobby kicking back with a couple of beers and reading case files for their amusement.
How to handle this?
Tell your therapist. The girl is breaking HIPPA laws. She needs either re-education or a different job.
I say this, because she did mention a name… yours.
Yes, thank you. However, I really don’t want to go there anymore. And, if I ‘tell’ on the girl other than anonymously I will get her stepmother, my employee in trouble for telling me what the SD said.
:eek:
Tell your doctor, immediately! And make it clear that you expect follow-up communication informing you of what steps are being taken to correct the problem.
ETA: I understand that your worried about the stepmother getting “in trouble” if you complain, and the girl gets fired or something, but I still strongly urge you to at least complain anonymously. I’m sure you’re not the only one being talked about, and something like this could seriously end up hurting the entire practice, and the other patients as well.
I would be furious if I found this out. You say she doesn’t “use names” of the patients, but I think that if she knows you are a patient there, she probably knows more.
Definitely report her ass. And make sure the therapist follows through, or go as far up the ladder as you can.
If she doesn’t mention names, how did the employee know you were a patient?
And yeah, they probably do talk about patients for their amusement. Not much you can do (or need to do) about that if they’re not violating your privacy. (the idea of them talking to outsiders about you in this case notwithstanding)
Darn simul-posts.
Ah, well. You don’t want to get the stepmother in trouble? Are you kidding? Are you aware that you are also not allowed to discuss medical situations in the workplace unless the patient is the one who volunteers it?
I think you might consider going to HR just to make sure the woman is aware that she is also in violation and she shouldn’t be so freely sharing information. How do you know she isn’t telling other colleagues about you?
Depending on your comfort level now that the horse has left the barn, you may want to find a new shrink. However, regardless of whether you stay or leave, I’d let the current shrink know what’s going on and tell him that you feel violated (and rightly so). This is sensitive shit and should be treated as such. I’m not sure how far the law goes in protecting the confidentiality, but I’d say it was blown in this case. She says she doesn’t mention names, but she mentioned yours. I’d narc her out for sure.
FTR, most people I know who have been in the medical field (nurses and caregivers mostly) discuss cases in a no-names kind of way. But not only is the SD a twit for violating the trust and outing you, but your employee is a complete jackass for even mentioning it. I’d have to question her ability to use good judgement on the job.
Fercrissakes.
The office manager and doctors of your group need to know about this. This can get them in serious legal trouble. Obviously the girl does mention names, otherwise how did your co-worker find out?
I completely understand that you might not want to go back there, but look at it as helping to protect the privacy of the patients who still do.
Let me offer a hypothetical to the OP:
You say nothing. Then you hear, next month say, from your employee about how employee Y at your company is seeing someone at the same practice.
Would you feel that employee Y’s right to privacy has been violated? Would you support the right of employee Y to recover damages, in this case? Speaking as a mental health consumer, I do believe there is still a huge stigma even among people who should know better* for a person to be known as being a mental health consumer.
In many ways, I believe that the potential for social and economic damage from being outed this way is very signifigant.
If you agree that this is the case, and that you’d support employee Y in my situation: Why don’t you accord yourself the same level of respect and protection?.
Report it, even if it gets SD fired, and causes your employee to quit. They’ve both shown particularly horrid judgment.
ETA: I’ve gone through a similar situation. Not as bad as yours, but while I was in group therapy, one of the people in the group had a hard time remembering that “You don’t mention things brought up in group outside of the group.” He’d made a joking reference to something that I’d said in the group, and I let it pass - because I judged that he meant no harm, and it wasn’t that important.
The next day he did much the same thing with someone else’s story. I spoke up then, but always felt that if I’d spoken up when it had involved me, I could have stopped that behavior sooner.
Tell your doctor and you may need to, and I hate to say this, speak to your HR department.
Exactly how did this ‘come up’ in conversation? Does your employee think they have some power over you? Do you think they do? Will it effect what you speak to your thearapist about?
None of that is acceptable behavior on the daughter or your employee.
Arrgh… This is my best employee. I’m not sure why she felt the need to bring this up. I appreciate all the input. I WILL say something. I’m just not sure who to say it to.
When I worked at a mental health clinic, I signed a confidentiality agreement that forbade me from discussing client information with anyone not also bound by the confidentiality agreement. If a patient wanted her therapist/psychiatrist to talk to another doctor, they had to have a release signed. I would bet that your employee’s SD signed something similar and it’s SOP for medical practices.
You really should say something about this, and here’s why: what if someone is in a fragile emotional state and it gets out via this girl’s big mouth that he’s in therapy? Then he feels like he can’t go anymore. This could have serious consequences for someone becoming unwilling to go to the doctor when he needs to.
Your employee’s SD is doing something really unethical. Report her to your therapist and tell her you don’t want to be dragged into it, but that you are no longer going to that clinic because of this breach of confidentiality. That should take care of it, and your name will not get mentioned. I doubt it will come back on you because I bet this girl has breached confidentiality on more than this occasion and as such will have no idea that you are the one who reported her.
I’m a psychologist. I want to encourage you to discuss this with your therapist. It is unacceptable and illegal. Psychologists have ethical and legal responsibilities that actually exceed HIPAA in protecting your privacy. Our ethical obligations hold us responsible for our employees’ training on confidentiality. If I were your therapist, or anyone in that group, I’d want to know ASAP, whether or not your name was used (which evidently it was) or whether employees (presumably not psychologists) were gossiping about clients in ways that were identifiable and/or outside the office, which it seems this person also did. If I learned that any employee of my practice was sharing confidential information I would be putting them on job probation at the least. Ultimately, the violation rests on the professionals’ licenses and as a rule we take this very, very seriously.
Edited to add: No, as a generalization, we don’t talk about clients or cases for fun. And no, merely omitting names is not sufficient protection of your privacy for precicely the reason that people live in communities and are sometimes identifiable even without names. We do not kick back and drink beer and laugh at clients. If I learned of that behavior I’d be firing people. Most of us would. I am involved in a number of professional oversight organizations that put me in a position to know that this is egregiously bad behavior, and not typical.
Agreed 100%. She should know better and the doctor has the right to know that someone in their employ doesn’t take privacy laws seriously. Explain what your relationship to her is and ask the doctor not to specifically mention who brought the issue up and I"m sure he/she will respect it.
Also this:
Is also very unprofessional and should not be going on. Names or not, I don’t think she ought to be talking about patient issues with people outside of the office. I would hate to hear someone doing that and thinking to myself “Holy crap, do they talk about me after I go, too?”
Here’s your state psychology licensing board’s website: http://psychology.ohio.gov/
I strongly encourage you to speak with your therapist first, because s/he is probably not aware of the employee’s behavior. However, the website may provide you with some helpful information and a formal grievance process should you not get a satisfactory response from your therapist.
Thanks to you all, Shoshana especially. I’ll tackle the matter tomorrow.
I feel for you. I certainly wouldn’t want my own therapy experience out on the table unless I put it there myself. Best of luck.
As another former member of the medical profession, I agree that staff should be trained not to gossip about patients like that. Medical staff are human, and the occasional unnecessary gossip in the office does happen, but what the step-daughter is doing is inexcusable.
Confidentiality isn’t limited to the medical field, either. As a secretarial/accounting type, I have access to all types of information at all kinds of companies, and part of the job description is always discretion. The step-daughter really needs to learn to keep her big mouth shut, so yeah, complain away to the clinic.
You tell your therapist and let chips fall where they may.
You employee’s SD made an unethical and illegal error in talking about patients in an identifiable fashion. Her mother compounded the error by not recognizing that this is not small talk and telling you about it. Had she wanted to protect her step daughter, she needed to keep her own mouth shut. She didn’t, that creates your ethical dilemma.