Blood lab technician Elissa Mays claimed she was acting in the interest of efficiency when she asked a roomful of patients if any of them “were there for drug testing.”
That question got her fired for violating the hyper-secretive federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, better known as HIPAA.
It also thwarts the Pittsburgh woman’s bid to get unemployment compensation, a Commonwealth Court panel ruled Thursday.
Mays’ September 2017 firing came 17 years into her employment with the Laboratory Corporation of America. Judge Anne E. Covey concluded in the state court’s opinion that Mays’ drug testing question constituted willful misconduct that bars her from getting jobless aid.
HIPAA bars medical professionals from disclosing health information regarding patients. Mays was fired after a patient in the waiting room lodged a complaint about her drug testing question, Covey noted.
She wrote that Mays claimed because the lab had only one restroom available for administering drug tests she “sought to decrease waiting times for the 13 patients who had already signed in by asking them the nature of their business and then directing them to the appropriate room.”
Although Mays argued before the court that she never asked a specific patient whether they were there for drug testing, Covey found that Mays had admitted to a supervisor that she had violated HIPAA.
Mays had been warned, repeatedly, that she would be fired for breaching that law, the judge noted. Mays herself testified she was “aware of the HIPAA laws and the sensitivity surrounding them,” Covey wrote.