COLUMBIA, SC (WLTX)- Imagine if your personal medical records were out there for anyone to see, at any time.
The law protects you from that. But what about when that law is broken?
A Midlands veteran and Dorn VA Medical Center employee, Joshua Potts, says it happens more than you'd think.
"It's open, boldfaced lies," Potts said. "I will not stop until this is made right."
Potts contacted WLTX when he realized his personal medical records were being accessed by unauthorized co-workers.
"I became aware that my HIPPA protected medical information had been serially violated," he explained.
He filed a privacy complaint, that after several months finally came back confirming that at least 5 employees who accessed his records had no reason to.
"Medical information can be bought and sold for nefarious purposes," Potts said. "I know full well this could bite me 10 years from now and I’d never see it coming. The information is out there, you can’t fix this, and I'm stuck having to live with it. And so is anyone else to whom this happens."
So what was done to fix it? Potts says, absolutely nothing.
The people who looked at this private and personal information without a need to know, still work at the hospital.
"They’re still walking the halls," Potts said. "They’re still around, I see them every day. If they had at least acknowledged it, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. They did nothing."
Dorn's medical director, Timothy McMurry, says it's not necessarily a fire-able offense.
"Rather than just fire people right off the bat, if there’s a lesson that can be learned, people should learn from their mistakes," McMurry said.
He went on to explain that there are measures in place to avoid violations.
"Every employee of the VA is required to go through a privacy awareness training," he said, adding that a prompt even comes up before employees' records can be opened.
"It says 'are you sure this is the correct individual that you are trying to access their medical record’" McMurry explained, "so there is no mistake."
So, he said, employees know accessing a patient's record without reason is illegal.
"So even after all that," News 19's Savannah Levins responded, "You're saying they deserve to learn from this experience and have another chance?"
McMurry responded quickly, "No, they'll be held accountable, but not every instance is deemed a firing...We have accountability measures built in to our policy and that could be anything from an admonishment or reprimand, all the way up to a removal."
McMurry went on to say they will only fire someone if the violation causes serious harm.
The definition of "harm," of course, is relative.
"This has made me miserable," Potts, an 8 year Army veteran, said. "It has made my life miserable in ways that they cannot actively fix."
Potts admits much of his anxiety likely comes from his years of service.
"This isn’t isolated, this is almost a matter of endemic policy," he said. "[The employees] have come to believe, and correctly so, that they can do these things and get away with it."
McMurry insisted HIPPA violations are not a systemic issue at Dorn. But Potts, who now has trouble sleeping at night, disagrees.
"It is not the VA to be protected here, it is the veteran," Potts said. "And we are failing in spades to do that."
*Note: During the interview with McMurry on July 21, he stated he would reach out to Potts to "make things right." As of July 27, the date the story hit our air, Potts said he still had not been contacted.