Requiring paperwork after I left

[ErnBlz]

I recently quit my home health job because the work load was crazy and they were basically expecting us to work off the clock. We also had call 24 hours a day for a week every other week. I have some paperwork that is not complete due to the extreme work load. They great majority is complete. They are asking for revisions on over 30 of my reports. (For a while I was trying to case manage 50 patients).

The question I have is-Can they require me to do paperwork after I am gone? I have been working on finishing a few things but my last day is in 4 days and they are asking me to revise over 30 of my admission and discharge reports (which are actually complete, they just want me to make a lot of changes). First of all, that is my charting, why are they changing it? Second of all, I don't think I can get them all done. Can they force me to do this? The nurse who left before me said she worked for no pay for 2 weeks to get the paperwork done they requested her to revise.

Have any of you been asked to do paperwork when you are no longer an employee? I don't think it's appropriate to be still accessing the client files after I am gone.

[caliotter3]

If it was incomplete work that you want to get paid for, I would do it, and do it fast, within a week. But to revise something that was previously turned in, no.

[Libby1987]

I'm not going to speak to whether or not you should change your documentation but you can't access medical records after separation, HIPAA violation.

[Isabelle49]

Is the paperwork for patients you were seeing or were you working in the office? If it is for patients you were seeing, the company can report the undone work to the board of nursing.

[Katillac, RN]

It's a violation of federal labor law for you to work and not get paid. Anything you do that is to your employers' benefit or could be expected to benefit must be compensated. If you've been terminated, any further work you do opens the employer up to big time censure and fines, more so if there's a pattern of it, as seems to be the case here. It's also against the law for them to hold your check past the next scheduled payday whether you have incomplete work or not.

Comments like the one above about being reported to the BON make me crazy. Failing to revise reports when asked is neither gross negligence or incompetence nor a criminal act. When one of those behaviors occurs, the nursing board may elect to take disciplinary action. Their role is essentially to see to patients' safety, not to police your charting. Or at least that's the case in the twelve states whose BONs I'm aware of - you don't say what state this is happening in.

And ditto on the comment regarding allowing terminated employees access to files being a HIPPA violation.