Hipaa and scheduled Dr.'s appointments

[makes needs known]

My husband has been told he has to furnish proof of a future Dr's appointment in order to get the time off for appointment. Is this not a breach of Hipaa? Say you have an appointment with a psychiatrist. Or some other specialist for a condition that you have not divulged to your employer. I can understand if the reason might affect your ability to perform your job. Thanks for any information.

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

On 8/31/2019 at 10:30 PM, MunoRN said:

The employer can require that the employee provide proof of a medical reason to miss work. The employee can then give permission to their Doctor's office to confirm that the appointment occurred when the employer inquires about the appointment. Or the employee can decline to allow any information related to the appointment to be shared, and risk the consequences that may go with that.

I don't think an employer has the right to know the reason for your visit to a doctor. That is your personal business.

[JKL33]

5 hours ago, Kooky Korky said:

I don't think an employer has the right to know the reason for your visit to a doctor. That is your personal business.

I think what is being said is that the employer doesn't have to grant the time off during the work day at all, and they don't have to consider personal appointments to be an "excused" or tolerable reason for an absence from work. But if they choose to work with the employee to allow these things so that employees have an increased access to health care, then it makes some sense that they would require proof in order to prevent rampant abuse.

The alternative is that employees miss work for whatever reason they want and then when they have met the limit of what is reasonably tolerable (or a threshold previously set by the employer), they have no more days off and will be terminated if absences continue.

I think all of that is reasonable, although I don't for one second believe that people's private patient information won't be known by and possibly used by employers. This is a very old thread and I've never personally had to worry about the issue, but it does seem like it would be best if there were a way to verify that there is a health-related appointment while concealing every other detail.

[MunoRN, RN]

16 hours ago, Kooky Korky said:

I don't think an employer has the right to know the reason for your visit to a doctor. That is your personal business.

It is your personal business and the employee if free to keep it their personal business by not scheduling these appointments on their personal time. If the employee wants the employer to excuse the employee during work hours they are otherwise obligated to, then they can set requirements for justifying that excused time-off, including evidence that the time was indeed used for a medical purpose.