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Hello,
When DYFS sends the medical release forms to your family Dr they are asking if the person applying is able or capable of caring for children or a child. I have had these forms sent numerous times over the years when getting licensed through the state and private agencies.My question is-are CW's allowed to question about taking a specific medication,what is the dose,how often is it taken and why is it taken? My understanding was always that the Dr just answered either yes or no as to if the person was able to care for children.
I was really taken aback with the questions.The SW said the Dr had sent a list of the medications I took in the report.My understanding under the HIPPA law was that is private information unless another Dr or medical facility was requesting the information.I have never had this happen before and have been through this process with DYFS (same county) & private agencies numerous times in the past 11yrs or so.Neither my husband or I have ever been questioned about any medications let alone dose or why we take it.
Another question,,all along we have been getting licensed for kinship and regular foster care.Both counties knew this,but this new SW involved said we can only be lilenced for one or the other,not both.I know of two other foster homes locally that have kinship children and foster children not related to them. Who is correct here,,the SW who just started working with us or all the other SW's who said there was no problem.We already have custody of a family members baby since Dec,but are still unlicensed due to chronic delays from the county he is from so the county I live in has taken over as to assist,but is now saying no we can not.
Thank you
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I do not know if it is a HIPPA violation or not, but we were asked if we took meds and what they were. Did you sogn a relase form for medical information? that moght cover them, but you can check and see the excat wording for what was to be released. We had to fill out a form for that when applying with our agency. We're told that none of that would prevent us from being FPs as long as we were under a doctor's care for certain conditions. We do not take any regular meds other than allergy stuff, so I do not know if it is true tht it would not affect our application, but that is what we were told.
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i'm so glad someone else noticed this. i swear when we first got licensed the doctor just signed something saying we are or are not well enough to parent, and during the homestudy they asked about meds but i dont' recall signing a release for all my medical info to be available to DYFS. for our relicensing we had to sign a medical release and when we saw a copy of the form they sent to our doctor we were VERY upset. it is a TON of detail and when ishowed the consent for medical release to a friend who is HIPAA-trained she said it is NOT HIPAA COMPLIANT because it doesn't mention exactly what info you're consenting to have released. It also seems inappropriate that our resource workers, who have no medical background, get to see all this detail about our medical conditons or meds. Either our doctor should be trusted to say "yes" or "no" to us being well enough to parent, or the form with detail about our conditions should be sent to a DYFS doctor to approve or not approve. I don't think my Bachelors-level RW needs to know each med I'm on. She wouldn't even know what they were for. The whole thing seems sketchy. A medical approval from a doc seems fine to me, but the level of detail and the fact that it goes to the RW just skeeves me out as someone with medical conditions who takes multiple meds but has absolutely nothing interfering with my ability to parent. i'm wondering if these forms changed recently?
I agree with you thankfulone. I did not like at all this worker asking me if I still took one med,how much,how often and why.I have never been asked those questions in the past when we went through this process before.I have never been asked anything about my medical history at all.Yes we signed a release form,but I thought it was just to have the Dr say yes or no we were capable of caring for children or my nephew in this case.Unless you are educated in medications one medication I have been on for years can be used for more than one reason and many people do not know this.The worker did have a attitude when she questioned me.I was afraid not to answer,but resented her tone and how she seemed to not like that I took it which is when she asked more questions about it.That is not her business imo and I will be questioning about this to someone. It feels as if being a foster parent we have no privacy in any area of our life.I never felt this way in all the years of fostering in the past. That is a excellent point,have the forms changed recently?
I wanted to resurrect this hread because there is a brand new "consent" to release "EVERYTHING" about yourself - medical, employment, etc etc. It basically says you give everyone in the world permission to release everything about you to DCP&P forever....
I'm not signing it. It's a ridiculous form and way beyond the scope of what they are entitled to by the resouce parent statute and administrative code.
I just found out earlier this week about that new form.We were shown it when we asked to see one again.We had signed the old one last year which only asks for our family doctor not specialists.We were accused of hiding information which is clearly in our charts and we are well aware of so why would we hide it? We couldn't have hidden it even if we had thought about it so it makes no sense at all.There are also new questions added to the packet for prospective foster and kinship parents.Numerous questions pertaining to our past and present sex lives.Very invasive questions that have nothing what so ever to do with our parenting nor anyone else business except ours as a couple.If you refuse to sign that form I'm sure you would lose your license.When we tried to question some thing pertaining to getting licensed that we had problems with due to workers not doing their jobs correctly or in even close to a timely manner we were spoken to in such condescending,patronizing and demeaning manner we were utterly stunned.I also found out the worker was indeed wrong and homes can being licensed for kinship and reg foster care at the same time.I'm amazed how many workers give out wrong information in so many areas.
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zooloo58
There are also new questions added to the packet for prospective foster and kinship parents.Numerous questions pertaining to our past and present sex lives.Very invasive questions that have nothing what so ever to do with our parenting nor anyone else business except ours as a couple.
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