Katrina asked Ric if she was correct in her understanding that the "burden" is on the employee to not tell about a medical condition, as opposed to the "burden” being on Managers to not ask -- Ric agreed with this assessment.
Ric said that Human Resources has put together a summary sheet of the information from the last X-Change meeting, which he distributed. Since a number of people missed the X-Change meeting on this issue, Human Resources will be scheduling a few makeup sessions. The basic rule of thumb for supervisors is to keep employee medical conditions confidential. If an employee wants co-workers to know their medical condition, they can tell others.
Debra Spindle asked if the supervisors are responsible for informing the staff about this, or if something else is being done about it. Ric said that at this point they have met the federal requirements for training the supervisors. He said that they could probably do any training deemed necessary from the handout that they received at the X-Change meeting. Ric stated that employees only need to be informed that the HIPAA rules are in place. A plan of action will be e-mailed, probably from PSA.
