new job what do i tell them

[June6th]

i have chronic hep c.   treated and it was a no go.  the good thing is i did not have much damage.  I do feel worse since i tried to treat.  tired tired tired.  
I just got into the county and everyone knows how good county benefits are.  I have to go for a health examination with their doctor.  I don't want to tell them anything.  Is this ok?   I  can do the job so why do i have blab this all over the place.  I won't have insurance for 90 days and when that occurs is that have to go thru my boss or is that between the insurance company and i?  Please get back to me.  

[Virgo911]

OMG!!!!

[meakea]

I thought it was standard procedure everywhere for the health department to be notified of our Hep C status (because it happened to me).  A week or so after I received my diagnosis, I received a call from the local health department informing me that they now have a file on me and the county health nurse proceeded to ask me a bunch of questions:  Did I ever take drugs, do I have tattoos, which dentists have I seen...etc.

I made a personal visit to the county health nurse because I decided to get my Hep A&B shots through them and she actually pulled out a file on me that had some of my medical records in it!  That totally surprised me that they had copies of my medical documents because I never signed a release to let them get those records.  I guess when it comes to certain diseases they can just help themselves to our records and evidently HIPPA doesn't apply to the government.

[Bill1028]

Yes, we are monitored.  

http://www.guideline.gov/summary/summary.aspx?ss=15&doc_id=3620&nbr=2846

[Virgo911]

Interesting,

last year I moved from NY state to NJ (just a mere 25 miles away from where I used to live). I kept most of my doctors, who are practicing in NY (including GI). About 2 months later after my moving I had to go for blood test regarding my tx. I'd decided that I will save myself a trip plus gas and will do that test somewhere close to my house in NJ.

Could you imagine my shock than 2weeks later I was sitting in my GI office, discussing blood test result when suddenly Doctor broke with:
- Oh, you know I received a very strange letter from your county Health Department requesting information about you health status, tx and prognosis on your HCV.... Its been first time in my entire carrier.

(And his carrier is +35 years!) I was speechless.  GI assured me that he gave them very vague answer without any direct explation.

But WTF was that?!? Are we being monitored by Government????

[Shanaenae]

mremeet sounds right on!

Hey, i work for our county government and i believe there is the HIPAA law that protects employees from displaying confidential info on ones health issues.
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacysummary.pdf

Also, i believe you DO NOT have to inform them (your employer) in any way of your medical history. It is the same with HIV. By law, you can work at any establishment and you DO NOT have to inform them if you have HIV, unless you are working in the medical field and you are around other patients on a daily basis. My insurance covered all treatments for me and it was considered a pre-existing condition. The only reason i told my boss was because of missing work and posibble side effects with treatment. They recommend informing everyone in your family, your friends, and work employees in your specific office just so they can be aware and understand that you might be sick or need to leave early, or that you might want to cut there head off at some point because of frustration and irritability from treatment, or if you are one of the ones that has depression issues, it is really nice if they are aware and can give you support. My personnel advisor was wonderful with helping me out with insurance issues and who to talk to and what to ask. After that point, i discussed everything with the insurance company dirrectly!
Hope this helps, just my experience with treatment and county government emplyment!

[mremeet]

As far as I know, if you are in the US you cannot be fired from a job you have already been hired for because you have hep C. There may be some rare exceptions in the healthcare industry, but even there I believe nurses, doctors etc have a "right to work" with HCV (as long as appropriate precautions are taken). If you have not been hired yet and are still in the screening phase, I'm not sure what the law is. But again I'm doubtful you can be legally denied just for am HCV+ status as long as you are otherwise qualified. I don't know how the health insurance screening thing is going to go. They may say you have a pre-existing condition and make some claim that they will not cover issues pertaining to HCV in the future - but again I doubt they can get away with that.

I suspect the real reason for the physical is to establish a health baseline so that if you become injured or develop some kind of illness in the future and claim that it was work related (and sue for compensation), they'll be able to determine if it was a pre-existing condition or not (and be able to legally deny compensation based on it being a pre-existing condition). This is especially true for those who work around a lot of industrial noise (hearing loss) and/or for those exposed to potentially dangerous dusts and fumes (and may smoke as well).

My $0.02 anyway, good luck.