At what point are employers asking TMI?

2BRN123 · Jul 3, 2011

What's scary to me is that I don't feel like these questionnaires are subject to privilege. Once you fill it out, can't all that info you volunteered get tossed into a database and shared with whomever?

allnurses Guide · Jul 3, 2011

America, you voted for the people who decided that you are not entitled to health care, so do not complain when that policy is implemented at the micro level.

Agree to the millionth degree. Most not only agree with this thinking, but vehemently argue against healthcare as a basic right if it affects their take-home pay. Well, welcome to utopia where healthcare is a business.

Altra, BSN, RN · Jul 3, 2011

We can put aside the discussion of yearly colonoscopies, as I merely threw that into the discussion to iterate that this concept of very comprehensive pre-employment physicals is not new, nor is it unique to hospitals or the healthcare industry. As I said in my post ... the corporation that I worked for that had those requirements was in a different industry, and it was the early 1990s when I worked there. It's not relevant to the OP. But to answer a subsequent question: yes, the company paid for the diagnostics.

Executive physicals have been for a long time and continue to be fairly standard for upper management in all industries. Even in small businesses, partners or principals in the business may be required to undergo some regimen of periodic physicals w/diagnostic testing because there is often a life insurance policy on each partner -- because the businesses' sudden loss of one of these individuals' time, productivity and expertise would be at least temporarily devastating to the business.

Please, if we're going to discuss and/or debate this topic let's have some understanding of the big picture, rather than devolve into a Jerry Springer-level "discussion" consisting of hyperbole and myopia.

MyGranniePanties · Jul 3, 2011

Since when did it mean that because the majority votes for someone that meant "everyone" voted for them?

Dudette said it correctly. The insurance company has the right to know my medical business, not the company I work for. They shouldn't get to pass judgement on me and potentially not hire me based on illnesses that have nothing to do with my work performance.

I wonder of they will have a 24 HR call line so I can alert them every time I have a BM or my period comes late?

kcmylorn · Jul 3, 2011

The bottom line is- yes, it's very intrusive and none of the employers business(none of the employers business if the nurse does or does not have genital herpes unless the employer plans on sexual contact being added to the job description). We have HIPPA laws but they don't seem to apply to the nurse when it's the nurse's personal medical HX. Customer service crap but civility and respect doesn't apply to the nurse. Labor laws but they don't apply to nurses. The oath of "do no harm" but again, it doen't apply to the treatment of the nurse personally.

What is the standard for the perfect employable Nurse- what is the gene pool? Blue eyes, brown eyes, brunette or blond, fat or skinny,white/black or other, smoker or nonsmoker, Etoh or no Etoh, family hx of or no Hx of diabetes, HTN, Sickle cell, cancer or what about HIV+ or HIV -. Perhaps the analogy should have been presented more along the palatable lines of the "Stepford Wives/Husbands" instead of "The Boys from Brazil and Sophie's Choice" I choose to look at it from the later two- I see nothing glamorous about discriminatory employment practices. The way to avoid them is for the healthcare system to be turned over to the watchful scruitiny of the federal government since private sector can not manage it and conduct themselves responsibly and lawfully.

Just throwing this out there- with the nursing shortage the way it is in some foriegn countries(Korea for example med/surg Nurse patient ratio 20:1), the nursing staff have to wait their turn to become pregnant. It's not up to the nurse and her partner! How's that for intrusive.

pedicurn, LPN, RN · Jul 3, 2011

I don't think yearly colonoscopies are the standard of care except in cases with a STRONG suspicion of colon cancer- Again, that pre exsisting condition to weed the 'imperfect' out of a job and for whose convience. Colonoscopies are a very expensive test to be done 'yearly' on just anybody- I did endoscopy in 2003- they were $3,000 a pop, under consious sedation(endo RN administered) add propofol and a CRNA and that was more cash. I can't see any insurance company ok'ing this yrly colon crap, (paron the pun). or the mammogram. The recommendations on yearly mammo's after age 40 have changed. Again with a STRONG Hx- that changes and this is a hot and frequent(!!!) area for healthcare employers to not hire, force out or force retirement on those employees who have had breast Ca.( I personally know of quite afew of fe3male RN"s whose managers have made life MISERABLE in their attempts to get rid of them- for some nurse's it happen while they were out on surgical leave w/ the mastectomy, some managers favorite was to refuse ANYtime off during chemo and radiation. These nurses were forced to schedule their chemo after work on friday's!!!. The managers were female also!!! VERY psychotic female managers I might add. That river runs very deep!! I one breath you tell a staff of bedside nurses to bend over and kiss patient butt, what ever the patient wants, pt is #1, nurses are there to be compassionate YahdaYahda bull****-- and the next breath you push a nurse against the proverbial wall and make her choose between a chance at a 5 yr survival rate/ cure or her job to feed her family. One of these nurses(notice I said one, because I know afew others inaddition to)) happend to a L&D nurse.!! and that manager was licensed as a nurse midwife RN,MSN!!! This is not an insurance company. This is the pr**k in the business suit labelled CEO Mr corporate big business. Who if it were his usless priviledged wife, mother or daughter, she would have the best of the best reconstuctive surgeon in the world.
Mamo's are approx $1,000 /mammo.
The poster who posted- this should not be tolerated, and the more we don't stand up against this, the more and farther it will go on, is bang on. Think about those end results. Anyone that doesn't think these CEO's are killing people- think again. They don't do it with bullets they do it with the pen and personal greedy misguided judgement. Both methods should bear the same accountability.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Both methods-- a person dies- shoot someone- they die, deny someone their chemo,or means to make a living/survival(income, healthcare, social security, medicare), they die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Totally poor behaviour

Where is kindness ?

Where are the basic decent values that characterise decent society?

I would be very very angry too.

Good post kcmylorn :yeah:

CapeCodMermaid, RN · Jul 3, 2011

I had my last employment physical last year: blood pressure, lung sounds, and 'can you touch your toes without bending your knees'? Um, hmmm, where in my job would I have to do that? It's all just ridiculous, and frankly, no one's business unless it impacts your ability to do the job you were hired to do.

linearthinker, DNP, RN · Jul 3, 2011

Since when did it mean that because the majority votes for someone that meant "everyone" voted for them?
Dudette said it correctly. The insurance company has the right to know my medical business, not the company I work for. They shouldn't get to pass judgement on me and potentially not hire me based on illnesses that have nothing to do with my work performance.
I wonder of they will have a 24 HR call line so I can alert them every time I have a BM or my period comes late?

Obviously I meant a collective "you." :rolleyes: If you (singular, meaning anyone to whom it may apply) don't like the result, you better get busy working with moveon dot org or the like.

And who says they don't have the right? Well you and I may say that, but what we say doesn't mean squat. The courts have ruled that they can obtain that information and use it how they please, unless you are a protected class (ADA, etc). Don't like that, campaign for different judges, or different folks to appoint judges (as may apply in your district).

Seriously folks, what did you (general again) think a for profit health care system in a plutocracy was going to look like?

linearthinker, DNP, RN · Jul 3, 2011

:rotfl:

I invoke Godwin's Law. You lose the debate by default.

Classic. Two thumbs up.

Nrsstudent09 · Jul 3, 2011

When I had my physical for my current job the NP who did my exam asked me what my birth control method was. I informed her I was not using any (We are trying to conceive) and she proceeded to ask me why I wasn't using any, was I in a monogamous relationship, was I aware of the risks. I was highly offended and proceeded to tell her what happened in my bedroom with my HUSBAND and I was between us and not her.

linearthinker, DNP, RN · Jul 4, 2011

When I had my physical for my current job the NP who did my exam asked me what my birth control method was. I informed her I was not using any (We are trying to conceive) and she proceeded to ask me why I wasn't using any, was I in a monogamous relationship, was I aware of the risks. I was highly offended and proceeded to tell her what happened in my bedroom with my HUSBAND and I was between us and not her.

She is supposed to ask those questions. It is her business because it is her responsibility to get that information as part of a health history and to define risk stratification; it is good practice. Sheesh.

And then people get po'd b/c "that stupid NP didn't even ASK me if I was using BC....." Patients are stupid, even when they are nurses.

CapeCodMermaid, RN · Jul 4, 2011

I disagree with that last comment. If I go to MY NP for a physical, it is, indeed, her job to inquire about my use of birth control and safe sex. If I'm applying for a job as an RN, it's none of her business what kind of birth control I use if any. If I were applying to work in a brothel, it would be a different story.