Oh yes, those group physicals are illegal. If you notice, when you go to a doctor, dentist or any health professional's office, they have various ways that they use for you to sign it to let them know you're there. Most places now have removable strips where you sign your name on the strip then the receptionist peels the strip off of the sheet so that the next person who signs in doesn't see your name. If they don't have that, they may have you approach the receptionist's window so she can see who you are, and the receptionist writes your name on a sheet on her desk, that way, it's kept private from other patients who come into the office.
This level of privacy is a result of the HIPAA regulations. The mere fact that having your name visible so that others might see it is a violation of the HIPAA laws. The reasoning is that if you go to say, an oncologist (cancer doctor) for treatment and you sign in on a clipboard (as most doctors offices did at one time), then hours later, if another patient came there and went to sign in and saw your name, they might know you and figure that you must have cancer too. The doctor could then be blamed for revealing your medical condition by allowing others to see your name at his office.
If just signing a clipboard is a privacy violation, then having to take a physical in front of fellow employees is a major violation. The problem is, when I went to complain, the person in charge of handling the complaint was a company stooge. If you lodged a complaint, they'd just throw it in the trash, and tell you they sent it to the proper government agency. You have no way of knowing if they filed it or not. There isn't anywhere you can complain to outside of this company stooge. There's no address or phone number that an employee can can go to with the government to lodge a complaint. The employee must go through the employer's agent.(the stooge) Believe me, I tried.
It was only through refusing to take a physical with others around, and threating a lawsuit that the company finally allowed me to take the physical in a private room.
When they first started forcing you take these physicals, they had so many employees to administer to that they hired an outside firm to do the physicals. The firm brought in a hospital van which contained all the necessary equipment to do the tests.(it was more like an RV.) The van was parked directly outside the building near an exit door. You would stop before you went out to the van and sit at a table where they had a technician hand you medical forms that you had to fill out, and urine test bottles. These forms and urine bottles were stacked in rows and were arranged by name. That means that each bottle and form had all your personal information already typed on it. You name, address, age, date of birth, social security number, everything. These bottles and forms were laid out on a table in plain sight of anyone who walked by....not to mention that this technician frequently left the table to go out to the van to talk to the workers there. Your personal info was left unattended. When I saw this, I picked up my forms and blacked out my personal info with a magic marker, and tore the label off the bottle.
It's no wonder identity theft is so easily to perpetrate.
