AITA for calling out a secretary and threatening to report her to her manager after she revealed health information?

A healthcare worker experienced a needle stick injury and visited a lab for blood tests, including one for HIV. A lab secretary loudly mentioned the HIV test in front of other patients, violating privacy. The worker confronted her, but the secretary dismissed their concerns. After deciding to report her to management, the worker wonders if they overreacted. Read the full story below:

‘ AITA for calling out a secretary and threatening to report her to her manager after she revealed health information?’

I got a needle stick injury at work (Im a healthcare worker) and my family doctor filled out a lab requisition for baseline bloodwork to be done. One of the tests is HIV.
I went to an external lab to get it done because my family MD office is closed. It’s a typical diagnostics lab. In the waiting area there are 5 other people sitting down.

I go to the secretary and hand her the req forms. She takes them, checks me in, and I sit down. After 10 minutes she calls me back calling out my first name and says, “Ma’am there’s an issue with the HIV test form.” EVERYBODY in the waiting area heard and gave me looks. I go up to her, very angry, I told her you cannot just announce people’s personal health information like that.

She says, “Oh its ok, you are getting tested just because of a workplace injury.” I told her that’s fine, but other people don’t know that. What if I had to get tested for HIV for a more personal reason? What if somebody who knew me was in the waiting area and heard I was getting tested?

She apologized but I told her I will be calling her manager and informing them of the incident. She rolled her eyes and said “Go ahead.” in a mocking tone. I told my husband what happened and he said maybe I should cut her some slack.

But I told him, revealing personal health information is a huge violation. Its something that was drilled into me as a healthcare worker. I am appalled that the secretary was so blasé about it. I don’t care if she gets reprimanded or loses her job, this is not something to mess around with.. AITA?

Take a look at the comments from fellow users:

idkwhattowritehere21 −  NTA that’s a HIPAA violation (if in the US), she can and should be fired for this. Keeping health thing private is very important

jkatbat −  NTA I’m admin staff in a health care setting and we know better than that. Don’t just threaten actually call the manager and if they don’t do anything escalate and escalate until someone does

Himalayankitten −  NTA. That’s why HIPPA laws exist. I would definitely file a complaint.

RamblingManUK −  NTA. What she did is a huge privacy violation and is illegal almost everywhere. This can wreck people’s lives. The fact she clearly didn’t care shows she does this sort of thing all the time. You would be TA if you didn’t report her.

Xrsycs −  Lmao, no! You are NTA. First, she violates both the rules, and your privacy by talking about your personal medical info in a setting with people around. Secondly, she has the g**l to start being disrespectful to you afterwards.

cropofkismet −  NTA! Her behavior was wildly unprofessional (not to mention illegal under HIPAA). I think her inability to understand how serious her error was and apologize mean she should seek employment in another field, preferably one where she can’t ruin people’s lives or reputations.

Hot_Dog_Cobbler −  NTA. It isn’t like she said “There’s an issue with your cancer test form.” HIV still has a stigma around it that has connotations of promiscuity and other “deviant” s**ual behavior.

**OBVIOUSLY THIS IS NOT TRUE, BUT UNFORTUNATELY THIS IS THE WORLD WE LIVE IN** And beyond that it doesn’t matter. If you were there to get a hangnail pulled out, no one needs to know. The attitude was the icing on the cake, report her.

SnakesCantWearPants −  NTA. Not only did she choose to be careless with private patient information, but she was entirely unapologetic and unprofessional in the aftermath. She showed no remorse or concern for her misconduct, and that is a problem.

Sure, if she gets fired you may feel bad, but you will also know that she got fired because the manager of that practice doesn’t want the risk of their patients’ privacy to be compromised. Based on her attitude, she clearly has no intention of correcting her behavior in the future. Would you feel better if you said nothing and she caused problems for another patients and/or got the practice sued?

[Reddit User] −  NTA. If you raised the issue, and she didn’t even apologize, then there’s no reason for you to cut her some slack.

Illuminator007 −  NTA. If anything, you’re doing the business a huge favor. This secretary is responsible for handling sensitive HIPAA protected information, and if they are this careless about protecting that information, this employee likely represents a substantial liability to their employer.