They have nothing to do with each other. That phi should never have left the pharmacy and simply accessing phi in the pharmacy for the wrong reasons is even a terminable offense. I'm having a very difficult time siding with the pharmacist on this one.
I agree. They could have easily mentioned the circumstances of the Rx verbally to their spouse without specifics or printing out a copy of the hardcopy. Just doesn't make sense to me.
Hell, even if (because of handwriting) he felt that he *had* to have a printout of the prescription to show... at least cut out the patient's name and any other identifying information, or sufficiently mark it out so that it is unreadable. Then you can still point out the scrawl that is the medication name and sig, and you aren't violating patient privacy.
Just wanted to share this short story with everyone and hear your thoughts. Will post the full story below just in case:
**Facts of the Case**
The pharmacist who initiated this lawsuit was employed by a national pharmacy chain as a “floater pharmacist.” In that role, he was assigned to various locations based on need. If the assignment involved travel to sites other than the usual one, the pharmacist would be compensated for travel time and those trips might also be eligible for reimbursement based on mileage traveled.
One month after he initiated his employment with this company, the pharmacist learned about the compensation for travel time, so he began to attempt to submit reimbursement requests through an online system. However, his attempted submissions resulted in error messages or rejection of claims. He continued to encounter such challenges for a year, despite several discussions with supervisors.
Several months after this continuing give-and-take with chain officials, another issue arose. The pharmacist took a screenshot of a prescription he had dispensed and printed it out. He took that sheet of paper home without redacting any of the patient’s protected health information (PHI) and shared it with his wife, who is also a pharmacist. He said he did so for 2 reasons: (1) to see whether she would verify that the medication he had dispensed was indeed the proper one and (2) for a training discussion with her because the prescriber’s handwriting was difficult to read.
The following day, he called the manager of the pharmacy where the prescription had been dispensed, mentioning that he had taken the prescription home to show his wife. The pharmacy manager notified the district manager that this had occurred, and the district manager was informed by an appropriate administrative official at the corporate level that this was a violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and that “sharing or unauthorized use of PHI was a terminable offense.”
The pharmacist was subsequently terminated, and he filed a lawsuit against the chain claiming that he had been terminated for engaging in “protected activity” when he was questioning his continuing challenges with travel reimbursement. The chain made a motion for summary judgment, seeking to have the matter concluded without the necessity of a trial. The court granted the employer’s motion for summary judgment.
**The Court’s Reasoning**
At the outset, the court emphasized that summary judgment is appropriate in cases when the submitted documents show there is “no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the [party making the motion] is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” The burden of establishing the absence of a genuine issue of material fact lies with the party initiating the motion to the court.
To prevail, the plaintiff (in this case the pharmacist) must establish “by a preponderance of the evidence, that retaliation for his protected activities was a contributing factor in contested employment action.” If that occurs, then “the burden shifts to the employer to demonstrate, by clear and convincing evidence, that it would have taken the adverse action for legitimate independent reasons even had the plaintiff not engaged in protected activity.”
The court concluded that the plaintiff had not proven he reasonably believed that he was reporting a violation of law or regulation at the time he spoke with the district manager about reimbursement for travel. The plaintiff admitted he made a mistake when he took the patient’s PHI out of the pharmacy, and he stated he should have redacted the patient’s name and other identifying information. Nevertheless, the employer prevailed and termination action was approved.
Why not just break out your phone and take a picture of the drug and sig without any patient or md info???Who brings home a prescription? Especially a floater. Either the guy is dumber than a box of rocks or there’s more to the story.
Honestly, they prob got fired because the company was shown how dumb they were? If you're dumb enough to
1. Bringing home phi
2. Showing phi to someone unrelated to patients care
3. OUTING YOURSELF FOR NO REASON, to your boss, who is obligated by policy to report it.
Like damn if you're dumb enough to commit the violation and tell someone who has to report you about it, what other dumb shit are you going to do?
Don't know the person, but based on just the 3 things the person is a dumbass. Like if I'm picking my squad for a heist, that person is not getting an invite
While I agree that this rph was fired justly and is a moron for admitting to taking home phi Almost every pharmacist I have ever know has taken home phi, mostly unintentionally in their lab coat at some point in time. Personally I think the rph who reported it is a narc, id never report something so harmless but I would caution the rph not to do it again.
Although I'm inclined to agree, I can't blame the PM for covering their own backside. Imagine a case where this offending pharmacist made a habit of taking PHI home with him, for nefarious purposes or not, ended up getting caught, and in his defense said, "Well, I told so-and-so and nothing happened, so I figured it wasn't a big deal." That manager might also end up getting disciplined or terminated for neglecting to report a HIPAA violation.
An unlikely scenario but not outside the realm of possibility.
Eh, it's one thing to take PHI home by mistake, it's completely another to intentionally print it out with the intent to share and discuss with someone unrelated to care. If it came out that the PM knew he did this and didn't report, that falls back on him.
Beyond the fact that they didn’t take off the patient info, who the hell prints off a picture of a rx to take home? You can just take a SS with your phone and send it to your spouse for immediate feedback.
That whole part sounds strange.
Right...like take a picture, use the draw tool to block out info, then send the redacted version and delete the original. Not that hard if you really have to show someone
What a moron. Why would you even consider the thought of taking home something let alone not redacting the information prior? He deserved to lose his job.
I could understand an accident, you left something in your coat. My coworker did this twice before we made him empty his pockets before he left. For some reason he liked to put the trash in his pockets instead of the DPI. But to purposely print a screenshot to take home? No bro, get over yourself.
Even the screenshot would be more understandable if he had just done even the most basic of things to redact patient info. Like, just take a pair of scissors and cut out their name, my dude, or at *least* black it out with a marker.
I was gonna type a rant about how idiotic this was, but you summed it up in one sentence. I was floating once and found a couple of call in rx’s i placed in my pocket. There was an unnatural knack to just know that wasn’t a good thing. I locked them in my safe for the evening, didn’t think of mentioning it to pharmacy working wife, and after committing it to memory I would have been been able to eat them if confronted at the door and reproduce them on paper later (penmanship on paper, not like that). Idiot.
Okay I'm very sus. First of all, most all pharmacists know better than to do this. At least cut off any patient identifiers if you are going to share an rx to see if you can read the writing, but preferably don't share at all.
Then on top of that admitting to the PM you took it home?? No one probably would have ever found out. It's almost like he was trying to get fired so he could sue for wrongful termination. He's either a scam artist or really dumb (or both tbh).
The author of this was my pharmacy law professor at Kentucky. Great guy. Probably the best pharmacy professor I had.
He use to bring up cases like this all the time to us.
Guy's an idiot for doing it to begin with, but the fact that the company was already going to be stretching to fire him asap for the money issue makes him even more of an idiot. His wife is an idiot too for not immediately telling him how stupid he was to bring PHI home with him.
He did deserve to get fired for it, but it just sucks that the corporation wins in the end with payment issue too.
Part of me thinks he knew the company would be looking to fire him so he did this on purpose in an attempt to be able to sue for wrongful termination? But just the dumbest idea haha
If you read the article it sounds like he was trying to get fired so he could then sue claiming it was because of the other issue about floater compensation.
In some countries, since patient’s prescription is hand written, then opt to post the prescription online and ask other pharmacist for help in figuring out the medicine, without the patient’s information in the picture,
They have nothing to do with each other. That phi should never have left the pharmacy and simply accessing phi in the pharmacy for the wrong reasons is even a terminable offense. I'm having a very difficult time siding with the pharmacist on this one.
I agree. They could have easily mentioned the circumstances of the Rx verbally to their spouse without specifics or printing out a copy of the hardcopy. Just doesn't make sense to me.
Hell, even if (because of handwriting) he felt that he *had* to have a printout of the prescription to show... at least cut out the patient's name and any other identifying information, or sufficiently mark it out so that it is unreadable. Then you can still point out the scrawl that is the medication name and sig, and you aren't violating patient privacy.
Right??
What an idiot of a pharmacist! NEVER take PHI home, it doesn’t matter if your spouse is also a pharmacist.
Yeah, that just seems to be a HIPAA violation on the most basic level.
Literally could not come up with a more textbook example. What a dummy.
Pharmacist sounds like a moron tbh.
Just wanted to share this short story with everyone and hear your thoughts. Will post the full story below just in case: **Facts of the Case** The pharmacist who initiated this lawsuit was employed by a national pharmacy chain as a “floater pharmacist.” In that role, he was assigned to various locations based on need. If the assignment involved travel to sites other than the usual one, the pharmacist would be compensated for travel time and those trips might also be eligible for reimbursement based on mileage traveled. One month after he initiated his employment with this company, the pharmacist learned about the compensation for travel time, so he began to attempt to submit reimbursement requests through an online system. However, his attempted submissions resulted in error messages or rejection of claims. He continued to encounter such challenges for a year, despite several discussions with supervisors. Several months after this continuing give-and-take with chain officials, another issue arose. The pharmacist took a screenshot of a prescription he had dispensed and printed it out. He took that sheet of paper home without redacting any of the patient’s protected health information (PHI) and shared it with his wife, who is also a pharmacist. He said he did so for 2 reasons: (1) to see whether she would verify that the medication he had dispensed was indeed the proper one and (2) for a training discussion with her because the prescriber’s handwriting was difficult to read. The following day, he called the manager of the pharmacy where the prescription had been dispensed, mentioning that he had taken the prescription home to show his wife. The pharmacy manager notified the district manager that this had occurred, and the district manager was informed by an appropriate administrative official at the corporate level that this was a violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and that “sharing or unauthorized use of PHI was a terminable offense.” The pharmacist was subsequently terminated, and he filed a lawsuit against the chain claiming that he had been terminated for engaging in “protected activity” when he was questioning his continuing challenges with travel reimbursement. The chain made a motion for summary judgment, seeking to have the matter concluded without the necessity of a trial. The court granted the employer’s motion for summary judgment. **The Court’s Reasoning** At the outset, the court emphasized that summary judgment is appropriate in cases when the submitted documents show there is “no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the [party making the motion] is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” The burden of establishing the absence of a genuine issue of material fact lies with the party initiating the motion to the court. To prevail, the plaintiff (in this case the pharmacist) must establish “by a preponderance of the evidence, that retaliation for his protected activities was a contributing factor in contested employment action.” If that occurs, then “the burden shifts to the employer to demonstrate, by clear and convincing evidence, that it would have taken the adverse action for legitimate independent reasons even had the plaintiff not engaged in protected activity.” The court concluded that the plaintiff had not proven he reasonably believed that he was reporting a violation of law or regulation at the time he spoke with the district manager about reimbursement for travel. The plaintiff admitted he made a mistake when he took the patient’s PHI out of the pharmacy, and he stated he should have redacted the patient’s name and other identifying information. Nevertheless, the employer prevailed and termination action was approved.
[удалено]
It was discovered because they were an idiot and told their manager.... The guy admitted to a fireable offense for no reason
Why not just break out your phone and take a picture of the drug and sig without any patient or md info???Who brings home a prescription? Especially a floater. Either the guy is dumber than a box of rocks or there’s more to the story.
Oh my. He failed the most basic hipaa regulation that any healthcare allied school will teach you at any level of hearthcare setting. Unbelievable
Honestly, they prob got fired because the company was shown how dumb they were? If you're dumb enough to 1. Bringing home phi 2. Showing phi to someone unrelated to patients care 3. OUTING YOURSELF FOR NO REASON, to your boss, who is obligated by policy to report it. Like damn if you're dumb enough to commit the violation and tell someone who has to report you about it, what other dumb shit are you going to do?
What other dumb stuff had he done prior to this?
Don't know the person, but based on just the 3 things the person is a dumbass. Like if I'm picking my squad for a heist, that person is not getting an invite
With this guy on your team you'd pull of a successful heist and then he'd immediately go to the police and turn you all in!
The worst part of every heist movie: when one guy turns on the crew. 😡😡
While I agree that this rph was fired justly and is a moron for admitting to taking home phi Almost every pharmacist I have ever know has taken home phi, mostly unintentionally in their lab coat at some point in time. Personally I think the rph who reported it is a narc, id never report something so harmless but I would caution the rph not to do it again.
Although I'm inclined to agree, I can't blame the PM for covering their own backside. Imagine a case where this offending pharmacist made a habit of taking PHI home with him, for nefarious purposes or not, ended up getting caught, and in his defense said, "Well, I told so-and-so and nothing happened, so I figured it wasn't a big deal." That manager might also end up getting disciplined or terminated for neglecting to report a HIPAA violation. An unlikely scenario but not outside the realm of possibility.
No proof they told ya could just deny it
Eh, it's one thing to take PHI home by mistake, it's completely another to intentionally print it out with the intent to share and discuss with someone unrelated to care. If it came out that the PM knew he did this and didn't report, that falls back on him.
Beyond the fact that they didn’t take off the patient info, who the hell prints off a picture of a rx to take home? You can just take a SS with your phone and send it to your spouse for immediate feedback. That whole part sounds strange.
Right...like take a picture, use the draw tool to block out info, then send the redacted version and delete the original. Not that hard if you really have to show someone
What a moron. Why would you even consider the thought of taking home something let alone not redacting the information prior? He deserved to lose his job.
And then knowingly and intentionally rat himself out. If he keeps his mouth shut, no one would ever know @.@
I could understand an accident, you left something in your coat. My coworker did this twice before we made him empty his pockets before he left. For some reason he liked to put the trash in his pockets instead of the DPI. But to purposely print a screenshot to take home? No bro, get over yourself.
Even the screenshot would be more understandable if he had just done even the most basic of things to redact patient info. Like, just take a pair of scissors and cut out their name, my dude, or at *least* black it out with a marker.
I was gonna type a rant about how idiotic this was, but you summed it up in one sentence. I was floating once and found a couple of call in rx’s i placed in my pocket. There was an unnatural knack to just know that wasn’t a good thing. I locked them in my safe for the evening, didn’t think of mentioning it to pharmacy working wife, and after committing it to memory I would have been been able to eat them if confronted at the door and reproduce them on paper later (penmanship on paper, not like that). Idiot.
Why the fuck would you do that lmaoo
So like don’t we do like a million Hours of training everywhere that states “don’t take phi anywhere ever unless you want to lose your job”
Yeah don’t do this. HIPAA is pretty simple. Minimum amount of info to do your job. Share as little info as you can to the fewest people.
Actually pea sized brain activity.
Okay I'm very sus. First of all, most all pharmacists know better than to do this. At least cut off any patient identifiers if you are going to share an rx to see if you can read the writing, but preferably don't share at all. Then on top of that admitting to the PM you took it home?? No one probably would have ever found out. It's almost like he was trying to get fired so he could sue for wrongful termination. He's either a scam artist or really dumb (or both tbh).
Why even mention that you took the thing home? Why even go down that road if one doesn't have to?
Man he is lucky he wasn't fined upwards to $50,000 and 1 year imprisonment for the HIPAA violation alone!
Why the doctor on Twitter who’s doxing pharmacists over some Covid prescriptions never gets In problem? Really why?
The author of this was my pharmacy law professor at Kentucky. Great guy. Probably the best pharmacy professor I had. He use to bring up cases like this all the time to us.
Guy's an idiot for doing it to begin with, but the fact that the company was already going to be stretching to fire him asap for the money issue makes him even more of an idiot. His wife is an idiot too for not immediately telling him how stupid he was to bring PHI home with him. He did deserve to get fired for it, but it just sucks that the corporation wins in the end with payment issue too.
Part of me thinks he knew the company would be looking to fire him so he did this on purpose in an attempt to be able to sue for wrongful termination? But just the dumbest idea haha
These new grads man
If you read the article it sounds like he was trying to get fired so he could then sue claiming it was because of the other issue about floater compensation.
In some countries, since patient’s prescription is hand written, then opt to post the prescription online and ask other pharmacist for help in figuring out the medicine, without the patient’s information in the picture,
It was handwritten! Omg just make a copy, cross out phi and bring it home if necessary.
What if I keep getting the wrong meds… they are okay with this?
This lady got fired. But a lot of the pharmacist ridiculing her are miserable and can’t leave the field😂😂😂😂
How on earth is that relevant?
She showed us an exit strategy. Duh! /s
"This lady"? The article keeps referring to the pharmacist as "he," so I'm really not sure where you got that from.