Good afternoon,
My name is james getts, former medical practice manager for todd d. Cable, md, llc, d/b/a independent pain management.
I was summarily terminated by my employer on august 27, 2018 at 11:50 a.M. For what I believe to be wrongful cause and discrimination.
Summary of events: I was met at the door of my employment by a county sheriff's deputy and the university hospital (evans campus) security guard in order to terminate my employment. This was a surprise to me and as ordered, I handed over my office key to the officer, who stated that I was terminated (no cause given) and that "your final 2 week check will be mailed" (net amount $1, 406.26 for pay period august 13-26). The date is now september 4, 2018, and I have yet to receive this check, and I cannot get my employer to acknowledge my requests to provide information on its delivery or whereabouts. Thus, my family has been put in a significant financial situation and is at risk of non-payment of utilities and/or mortgage.
Events leading up to my termination on august 27, 2018 at 11:50 a. M:
- I am a disabled veteran and I required emergency medical care from the veterans affairs emergency department on the morning of august 20, 2018 for a service connected injury - incurred while deployed in a combat zone in 2009. I told my employer that I was having chest pains and shortness of breath and left the office at approximately 10 a.M.in response, my employer initially tried to keep me at the office despite active chest pains. My wife arrived at my request and forcibly removed me from the office and took me to the v.A. E.R. I was kept at this e.R. All day for treatment and evaluation, and was unable to return to work until the following day due to the medications I was given.
I returned to work the following day despite having tightness in my chest due to pressure from my employer to get back to work. I worked the full day on 21 and 22 august despite feeling fatigued and fell visibly ill on 22 august, as noted and remarked on by other employees. On the morning of 23 august I drove myself to university prompt care for continued tightness/pain in my chest/shortness of breath, and what was diagnosed as a severe respiratory infection likely related to my hospitalization at the va er on 20 august 2018, and related to my service in environmental hazard conditions in iraq in [protected]. This infection was highly contagious and rendered me unable to work on 23-24 august, 2018 under doctors orders due to severe coughing and vomiting exacerbating my chest pains. The doctor ordered me to rest for two days to prevent further cardiovascular complications with my heart and lungs.
On 23 august, while being treated for service connected injuries and illnesses, my employer, todd d. Cable, m.D. Posted my job for interview and replacement. He conducted an interview for my replacement on august 25, 2018 without my knowledge and without communicating his intentions to replace me for being on medical leave as a protected veteran, undergoing emergency care.
I believe in addition to terminating me for legitimate medical leave as a disabled veteran, my employer also used my medical absence as an excuse to terminate me for the following underlying reasons:
1. I refused to be complicit in illegal payroll activities as the practice payroll officer/manager. Specifically, dr todd cable demanded that the hourly employees of the practice work the weekend of 25-26 august. He stated that "he was not going to pay the employees working the weekend overtime," and was going to "pay them under the table" with "other monies" at their base rate only. All employees that were scheduled to work that weekend would have accumulated approximately 45-55 hours for the pay period, and dr cable was insistent that he would not pay the overtime, nor the taxes on the overtime. I objected to this plan and was belittled and dismissed for attempting to comply with federal and state labor laws.in objecting to his illegal intent and plan on approximately 17 august 2018, I became the subject of regular passive-aggressive demeaning comments daily from dr rose marie classi, m.D. (his spouse and non-employee) and experienced what I can only describe as a hostile work environment, whereby his spouse was given authority over me, and disallowed me to make any official decisions effecting practice safety, hippa regulations, occupational safety hazard prevention and reporting. Due to my insistence on federal and state compliance, I was regularly dismissed and belittled despite attempting to uphold the legal and ethical fiber of labor - and other - laws. I feel I was the victim of a hostile work environment brought on my disagreements and non-complicit stance or participation in illegal intent and actions.
Second, due to several close calls with occupational exposure concerns of medical assistants and office staff routinely in contact with treated patients, I demanded osha regulations be followed for the safety of exposed employees. The osha program was non-existent when I arrived at this practice in may 2018, and was suppressed and deemed "not necessary" despite creating the entire osha/msds program from the ground up myself, and publishing their osha manual - for which employees were discouraged to read by dr cable, and further suppressed any trained from this manual. After several close-calls with needle-sticks and potential patient bodily fluid exposures, I made the call to inform osha of the owner's gross neglect and dismissal of employee safety and the federally required osha program. I filed my complaint on the evening on 25 august, 2018. I received a call back from osha the morning of 27 august 2018, stating they would follow up on my complaints that day, specifically the hepatitis-b and hiv exposure plan violations that places the employees in direct danger of contracting these harmful viruses. I find it no coincidence, that I was fired punitively and in retaliation for reporting my employer's practice for osha violations (ref. Osha complaint #: [protected]).
In addition to multiple other hippa, medicare/medicaid, financial irregularities, this practice is a hostile work environment for the following reasons:
1. Qualified candidates for medical positions were often not hired based upon the doctor's discrimination against: (a) women in preference to male medical assistants and nurse practitioners, (b) military and military spouses due to their "ability to be called away at any time." I was personally offended by his stance on military given my veteran and army reserve officer status. I was of course dismissed when I told him he cannot conduct discriminatory practices and line of questioning like this in interviews, or include this in his reasons not to hire a candidate, (c) family situations were often used as discriminators in interviews and used against qualified candidates when making final hiring decisions (i.E. Candidates often discarded for being single mothers - this happened at least 5 times), (d) age was used as a consistent discriminator in interviews, as dr cable did "not want to pay for experienced personnel" and preferred younger talent due to their likely acceptance of a lesser wage.
Further evidence of his discriminatory practices, dr cable cites that he found a draft file copy of a resignation letter dated 22 august 2018.in this draft for my eyes only, I cited that my reserve unit is set to mobilize in fy19 and that I would like to consider (at the time) a resignation date effecting september 7, 2018. This letter was in my personal files, not intended for communication until a later date, not signed by me, and not sent, printed, or communicated to dr. Cable in any form or fashion. During the period of when I was under emergency medical care, dr. Cable decided to "discover" this document and further show his discrimination against military members and families by using my reasons of a fy19 mobilization as a reason to immediately expedite my termination and replacement (proof in text/email form from dr cable), thus not allowing me to work even the proposed (draft) intent of working until september 7, 2018.
In the end, my termination was the result of a hostile work environment, retaliation for making a formal osha complaint, and persistence in trying to be state a federally compliant. I see this termination as punitive, and this is further evidenced by my employer refusing to give me my final paycheck as aforementioned. (dr. Cable did withhold the previous practice manager's paycheck for months out of punitive feelings toward her, so there is precedent for this, and cause for my concern). I have also not received the required dol form 800 required by georgia code 34-8-190, thus I am unable to file for unemployment properly.
I appreciate in advance your time and attention to this matter. I cannot express how disappointed that I and my family are, and how hurt we have been by these individuals. I want to prevent this from happening to future employees of this practice.
I also have a three-page notarized copy of my acknowledgement of my termination to my employer available, however, it is being reviewed/corrected by my attorney. I can make this available at any time. I also have a 6 page description of my grievances against this medical practice, also being reviewed by my attorney.
Thank you again in advance,
Sincerely,
James a. Getts, m. Div., cmom
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