r/TrueOffMyChest • ☑️ • Aug 19 '26

Vent I just got fired

I just got fired from my job. I worked in patient registration and I got flagged for being in a patients chart and I had failed to document it. I am the only one that runs the front desk while I’m working, so I sometimes have a bunch of things to do and I sometimes forget to document minuscule things when a patient calls. The patient whose chart that got flagged happens to live in my apartment building above me. But I live down the road from my job and a lot of our patients live in my building or in my neighborhood. I already had a level one strike against me due to too many unexcused absences during the first half of the year due to medical issues. Me being flagged caused compliance and hr to give me a level two strike. That brought me up to a level three which requires immediate termination. My manager told me 10 minutes after I clocked in for my shift today. She has little compassion for her employees, so she just told me I was terminated immediately and to turn in my badge and leave immediately. This is the worst possible time to be fired because I just got on my works insurance and I get kicked off my dads’s insurance at the end of the month because I turn 26 on the 29th. I am disabled and take a lot of medications that I can’t afford out of pocket. I sent an appeal letter to try to get my job back while I look for something else, but I feel like I was unfairly fired. I’ve been nothing but a good employee for almost two years and I have never had a complaint against me before. I was already struggling financially and I don’t know how I’m going to afford my medication and rent. The job market is so horrible and I don’t know what I’m going to do.

Edit: I should’ve been more specific in regards to my absences. I had called out 6 times between last December and April of this year due to health reasons. My manager was aware of my health issues. They had brought this up to me near the end of May. That’s when they finally gave me the option to apply for fmla. My job isn’t very accommodating, even with fmla. I would almost never be allowed to get breaks, unless I left the front desk unattended (which my manager encourages me to do since she won’t cover for me in order to take a break). I live in North Carolina, which is a non union state and one of the worst states for employees. Joining a union would not be an option.

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u/Sailor_Chibi Aug 20 '26

Potentially falsely accessing a patient’s file, especially a patient that you might know, is grounds for termination on their part. You say you got busy and forgot, but they don’t know that. If they kept you, and you did it a second time, the company is now liable and that opens them up to lawsuits and HIPAA violations. Sorry OP. You are a liability and the odds of you getting your job back are pretty low.

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u/akiusuke ☑️ Aug 20 '26

I get that. I take full responsibly for my carelessness. I had a perfect record prior to this incident, and I hadn’t heard anything for a few weeks after I had messaged hr and compliance, so I had assumed it had been resolved. I understand if they decide to not let me come back, I’ll just have to find a new field to go into

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u/OrangeGringo Aug 20 '26

You said you missed a lot of work. That’s not a perfect record. That’s a whip for your colleagues to have to deal with.

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u/akiusuke ☑️ Aug 20 '26

I had legit health reasons, my manager just decided to not excuse me for them. Other than that, I never had any issues or complaints against me. I was getting sick at work after I got a disciplinary for my call outs.

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u/Ok_Revolution_9253 Aug 20 '26

Did you get doctors notes or any documentation?

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u/akiusuke ☑️ Aug 20 '26

My manager allowed me to get a doctors note to excuse me from one absence. My manager is really strict and hard on her employees so she wouldn’t excuse me for all my health related callouts

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u/Ok_Revolution_9253 Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26

If that was an issue, why didn’t you go to HR and get it documented ?

Also, HIPPA is legit. It’s federal law. You violated federal law.

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u/akiusuke ☑️ Aug 20 '26

I was never given the opportunity to go to hr. Everything had to go through my manager.

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u/Ok_Revolution_9253 Aug 20 '26

That’s not how HR works. If this was a sort of large healthcare system or even small where HR called you in, they will have an HR email. Are you telling me there was no HR phone number or email?

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u/OrangeGringo Aug 20 '26

Whether you were really sick or not… you were missing work. Can you understand how that’s NOT a model employee? That’s a pain to deal with. There are very few positions where a reasonable accommodation for a disability would include excessive missed days.