How would you like to learn your employer secretly contacted your medical provider to fork over your private health records … and then to make matters even stranger, told the medical providers that they are advised to not tell you they were sharing your private information?

Yea, it’s not good, and this is why the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) and the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) have filed suit against the Postal Service and its Office of Inspector General (OIG) for “systematic and widespread intrusions into the medical records of postal employees.”

The complaint, which was filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on January 17th, asserts that since 2006 the OIG began sneaking and poking into the medical records of postal workers. As this slimy, slippery and surreptitious practice continues, the OIG says it has every right to review the records as part of its oversight and investigatory activities … oh really?

So, I began thinking about this: What if a group of workers, clearly invested in the well- being and longevity of their company or organization, found that their top brass was slacking. They became somewhat concerned as they all agreed they needed their jobs. Then, without saying a word to anyone, began poking at the medical records of said-top brass.  What would happen?  My educated guess is that we’d have a group working people carted off in chains, loaded into a paddy wagon and beamed out on the six o’clock news.  

 The suit states that these practices constitute an unlawful invasion of privacy and that they exceed the authority of the OIG. In support of the suit, the unions also cite the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. From what I have read about this law, it is intended to streamline medical recordkeeping and establish strong privacy protections from the invasion of workers’ medical records. Sure sounds like there is a blatant breaking of the law in play here, what do you think?

The majority of this information was learned from what is posted here.