Confidentiality

An Atlanta area television station has been investigating EMS personnel sharing images and information protected by medical confidentiality laws in social media. Channel 11’s investigation into former Grady Hospital paramedic Amanda Courtright has widened to other EMS services around the country.

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An Orlando firefighter was fired today for recording part of an EMS run involving an elected official. Firefighter Joshua Granada reportedly admitted to using his cellphone to audio record part of a medical run involving City Commissioner Regina Hill.

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Today’s burning question: Our firefighters have to take a physical ability test twice a year. The fire chief posts the results with names and times on bulletin boards in each fire station. We believe his intent is to shame those who do not perform well. Is this legal?

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In this edition of Fire Law, Curt discusses the controversial settlement of an FDNY discrimination suit with Attorney Peter J. Gleason, himself a retired FDNY firefighter. Peter represented FDNY firefighter Kevin Simpkins who was awarded a disability pension earlier this year. The settlement made for sensational headlines.

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A Denver firefighter has filed suit claiming the department’s handling of his post-traumatic stress disorder violated the Americans With Disabilities Act, and that the reaction of his officers to his military reserve commitment violated the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act.

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Today’s burning question: I work for a fire department as a Firefighter – Paramedic. We have a quality assurance program in place for EMS. The department has EMTs doing quality assurance reviews on medical reports submitted by the Paramedics. In addition, ...

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Curt Varone and Kentucky attorney John Vincent discuss a lawsuit filed against the Elliott County Ambulance Service and two EMTs following allegations that one of the EMTs unnecessarily removed the clothing of a 15 year old girl during the transport. ...

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An embattled California fire chief who himself was the subject of three lawsuits is now filing one himself over his demotion to battalion chief last year. That leaves the fire protection district battling four separate lawsuits – and the plaintiff ...

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The shutdown of LAFDs Twitter feed earlier today over concerns about possible HIPAA violations has been reversed and the Tweets have resumed. The HIPAA-based shutdown is the second in the past two years for LAFD, and topic has been covered ...

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Today’s burning question: I am a career firefighter and one of my passions while off duty is to take photos at fire and emergency scenes. I typically post them to my web site and occasionally I post on Facebook and ...

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"This is nothing the citizens know about or have approved of. If we have firefighters or first responders rushing to scenes with cameras when people are injured … and don't even know these things are being used, that is an ...

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The FDNY EMS lieutenant at the center of a major social media scandal that broke last March, has been sued by a woman who’s photo he posted on Twitter. Timothy Dluhos aka The Bad Lieutenant, resigned last spring shortly after ...

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The Maryland Attorney General’s office has issued a memo to EMS providers and personnel stating that photos taken of patients who are identifiable constitutes “individually identifiable health information” under HIPAA, the release of which through any means (including social media) ...

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The Los Angeles City Fire Department is in the fire law headlines again, this time over an unusual legal issue: a misconduct complaint filed against city attorneys… by an attorney… who works for the city… although not technically a “city ...

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