Accessed Medical Records w/o Consent

Olucy

New Member
Jurisdiction
Oregon
Family member applied for a job with the City of Portland to drive a city Bus. He went thru several phone and virtual interviews, and tests over the last 2-3 weeks, was offered the job last week, and was scheduled for pre-employment physical today.

He went in for the physical, the physician came into the exam room, said "you were admitted for depression to Unity Center for Behavioral Health for 2 weeks in July. I'm not doing this physical. You can get dressed and go."

Turns out Unity Center states on their website their partners are: Kaiser Permanente, Oregon Health & Science University, Legacy Health, and Adventist Health. More importantly Unity's Community Partners include: City of Portland, City of Portland Fire & Rescue, Multnomah County, Portland Police Bureau, plus about 15 more area Portland Area Organizations.

Apparently since Unity Center for Behavioral Health is connected to the City of Portland the City Bus Dept has access to his medical records which they accessed without asking him and without his consent. The result is the Bus Dept has rescinded the Bus Driver job offer. It also means that the Portland Police Dept Records and the Housing Voucher Audit jobs he applied for, interviewed for, and tested for, are now off the table along with every future City of Portland job opening.

If his medical records were at a non-City connected facility the City Bus Dept, Police Dept, Housing Dept and every other City connected business absolutely would be required to obtain a signed release from him before they could go digging thru any of his medical records.

So the question is: is this legal that they accessed his medical records? So, what recourse does he have?
 
I'm sure your family member approved such access as part of the application process. Please feel free to have your family member log on to ask his own (if there are any additional) questions. He will have information that you simply are not privy to. Thank you for understanding.
 
I'm sure your family member approved such access as part of the application process. Please feel free to have your family member log on to ask his own (if there are any additional) questions. He will have information that you simply are not privy to. Thank you for understanding.

I have all the info. No, HR staff never mentioned, never asked, and nothing was signed regarding accessing medical records. Entire interview and hiring process was done either by text, phone, or virtual. The physician pulled up his chart from Unity on his computer screen right in front of family member before getting up and leaving room. Clearly Physicians doing employment physicals (and maybe other employees and Depts) are inter-connected to City Hospitals and Clinics but that does NOT give them right to access medical records without a signed authorization.

This family member had just moved to Portland 2 months prior, having been laid off his job in mortgage/finance which he'd worked from home since 2008, and was having a hard time, so was seeking some help in getting settled. He made calls and was directed to Unity Center for Behavioral Health to find a Counselor. They 'interviewed' him and he called me that they had threatened him "you can agree to be admitted for 3 days or we can go to a judge and have you admitted for 90 days". I warned him they can do that, and he can end up in a situation that he'll have zero control over. They doped him up on over 17 meds including 7 psych meds which he's never-ever been on. I told him to say and do whatever they want and get out in 3 days. But 3 days became 2 weeks (when his Insurance ran out) with the continual threat they could extend it to a month. All because he was looking for a Counselor.
 
I have all the info.

Do you?

HR staff never mentioned, never asked, and nothing was signed regarding accessing medical records.

Did your family member fill out an application, on paper or online. I'm guessing he did and I doubt that you have copies of it, where he may have authorized the release of medical records.

Did your family member fill out any papers at the doctor's office. I haven't been to a doctor's office in forty years where I didn't fill out and sign papers, which almost invariably authorized the doctor to obtain other medical records.

Lastly, it's quite possible that HIPAA has an exemption for how the doctor got access to the records.
 
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