Can my employer share my medical information with other employees? As Cleveland employment lawyers it’s a question we get fairly often. The answer is it depends. But in general, several employment laws impose confidentiality requirements on employers who receive employee medical information.
Before that though is the question of when your employer can even ask for medical information in the first place. Several federal laws prescribe the circumstances under which employers may seek employee medical information.
When can my employer ask to see my medical records?
The ADA has strict rules about when and what an employer can employees about their health and when employers can ask to see medical records. As a broad generalization, an employer (assuming it has 15 or more employees) may not ask whether an employee has a disability or force them to undergo a medical exam, “unless such examination or inquiry is shown to be job-related and consistent with business necessity.” 42 U.S.C. § 12112(d)(4)(A). In other words, there must be a genuine business need for the employer to inquire into whether the employee has a disability. Those circumstances will be rare though. One example would be a commercial airline pilot with narcolepsy, although not every example will be quite that extreme. This doesn’t mean employers cannot ask anything about an employee’s health. Employers may ask whether the employee is medically able “to perform job-related functions.” Id. at § 12112(d)(4)(B).
More common is that an employer will ask for medical information after an employee seeks a reasonable accommodation. The ADA does allow employers to ask for medical information when an employee seeks a “reasonable accommodation.” If the need for the accommodation is not known and obvious (for instance an employee in a wheelchair who needs a ramp), the ADA permits employers to ask for reasonable documentation about the employee’s health condition and how it requires accommodation of workplace policies or facilities. But the employer can ask for only enough documentation to substantiate the existence of the disability and why the employee needs an accommodation. In most cases, a letter from a treating physician is sufficient and the employer may not simply ask the employee to sign a blanket release of medical records.
The FMLA similarly sets out guidelines for when employers can ask to see medical records and we’ve written about that in more detail on our FMLA pages, which you can read here and here.
When can my employer disclose my medical information to other employees?
For now, let’s assume your employer has a legitimate basis to obtain your medical information as an employee. How is your employer required to store your medical records? Is the employer required to keep your medical information confidential? When and to whom can the employer share information about your health? Let’s look at some of the applicable employment laws.
The first of the protections for employee medical information is the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA places limits on how employers must maintain the confidentiality of employee medical information, and under what circumstances employers may share that information. Under the ADA, employers must keep employee and applicant medical information separate from the employee’s personnel file and must treat it as confidential medical record with limited exceptions. 42 U.S.C. § 12112(d)(3)(B). First, employers may notify supervisors and managers about “necessary restrictions on the work or duties of the employee and necessary accommodations.” Id. at § (d)(3)(B)(i). Second, when appropriate, the employer can of course notify first aid and safety personnel if the employee’s medical condition requires emergency treatment. Id. at § (d)(3)(B)(ii). Finally, employers may disclose employee medical information to government officials investigating an employer’s compliance with the ADA. Id. at § (d)(3)(B)(iii). Other than that, the ADA requires employers to keep employee medical information confidential. That means the company can’t disclose your health conditions to your supervisors or co-workers unless there is a legitimate need to know under one of these specific exceptions.
Next is the Family and Medical Leave Act, which also regulates when an employer can—and cannot—disclose an employee’s medical records and information. Similar to the ADA, the FMLA requires that employers keep “records and documents” related to the health of employees and their family members in a “confidential” file “separate” from the employee’s personnel file. 29 C.F.R. § 825.500(g). Here too, the FMLA mirrors the exceptions in the ADA.
Finally, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (or “GINA”), passed in 2008, is a federal law that prohibits employers from discriminating against employees based on genetic information, including family medical history and genetic predisposition to certain diseases. GINA applies to employers with 15 or more employees and requires that employers keep employee genetic information separate from personnel files and treat it as confidential. 29 C.F.R. § 1635.9. Its exceptions are slightly different from the ADA and FMLA however. But none of those exceptions permit employers to disclose employee genetic information to the employee’s co-workers or supervisors without a legitimate business reason.
Protecting employee medical privacy for Ohio employees
Although there are times when an employer has the right to ask an employee about their medical information, that doesn’t mean the employer can ask for anything it wants anytime it wants. And it does not mean the employer can then violate employee privacy by needlessly disclosing the employee’s health information with co-workers or others in the workplace who don’t truly need to know.
If you think your employer has unlawfully shared your medical information with other employees, call the employment lawyers at Bolek Besser Glesius LLC to discuss whether your employer has violated your rights.
