Medical Records and Your Privacy: Developing Federal Legislation to Protect Patient Privacy Rights

In 1997, Judi Selig, a secretary for a South Carolina machinery firm, probably did not anticipate her employer's extreme reaction to her medical history. When her employer discovered that Ms. Selig had been exposed to hepatitis several years before, it demanded that she undergo a blood test and sign a medical release form so that the doctors in the employer's health plan could access her records. When Ms. Selig consented to the test but refused to sign the release form, her employer punished her by suspending her for a week without pay. Ms. Selig quit the company mainly because it threatened her privacy.