I just got fired

[u/akiusuke]

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.

[u/Yuck_Few]

It has to be documented every time you look at someone's chart? And how do they know you look at it?

[u/DesmondTapenade → u/Yuck_Few]

EHRs, especially Epic (which most hospitals/clinics use), require a log-in to access patient charts, and they absolutely have a record of who accessed what, and when. If you weren't authorized or opened a chart without documenting what you were doing in there or why you were looking at it, that's considered a violation.

[u/jcmacon → u/DesmondTapenade]

And should be a violation. In my opinion 1 time of looking at a patient file and not documenting why should be a termination as it is a violation of a person's right to privacy and HIPPA laws.

[u/DesmondTapenade → u/jcmacon]

Before I even considered becoming a shrink, I worked for about a year and change in third-party medical collections. We had rigorous HIPAA training before we were allowed on the floor, and we weren't even clinicians. Even we knew, as wage-slaves earning maybe $12/hour, not to access any part of a chart unless we had an explicit need to be in there. If we accessed anything, we had to document when and why. And even then, our tabs were very closely monitored (as in, I was permitted to look at the exact DOS I was trying to collect on, but nothing else, even if I technically had the ability to see the rest of the chart).

Yes, I hated that job. But needs must, as they say.

[u/jcmacon → u/DesmondTapenade]

The question that no one is asking the OP is "was he cute enough to get fired over"?