A nurse in Progress, Pa., alleges that she was fired from her position at Hershey, Pa.-based Penn State Health after reporting a medical assistant who was illegally making treatment decisions for patients.
According to court documents obtained by Becker’s, Stephanie Shapllo, RN, said that she reported the medical assistant in November 2025 for illegally prescribing treatment to patients at the Penn State Health Progress Outpatient Cardiology Center.
Also in November 2025, Ms. Shapllo submitted a request for her employer to grant her disability-related accommodations. According to the lawsuit, Ms. Shapllo suffered from a variety of neurological and autoimmune conditions, all of which were disclosed to her employer and supervisor, Adriene Hare, as disabilities at the time of her hiring.
In October 2025, Ms. Hare allegedly raised concerns about Ms. Shapllo using “so much” paid time off in the months since her onboarding in June 2025. She insisted that the practice could not support her PTO requests despite her awareness that they were being used for disability-related medical appointments.
Ms. Shapllo’s November 2025 request for accommodations included time off for medical appointments and therapy, as well as one day maximum per week to recover from symptom flare-ups as needed.
Shortly after submitting her request for accommodations, Ms. Shapllo discovered a “serious violation” of state laws that prohibit medical assistants from using clinical judgement. According to the lawsuit, MAs at the practice were independently making medical decisions on whether to approve or deny patient prescription requests without consulting licensed physicians or nurse practitioners at the facility.
While reviewing one patient’s file, Ms. Shapllo found that on Nov. 5, 2025, an MA had cancelled a prescription refill request that a licensed nurse practitioner had ordered for the patient. The NP had originally put in a 90-day refill request for a patient’s heart medication, which the MA then reversed and replaced with a 30-day refill.
Ms. Shapllo also discovered that the MA had allegedly labelled the patient’s chart as “non-compliant,” which “had the potential of causing serious negative repercussions on the patient’s future care, outcomes and the patient-provider relationship,” according to the lawsuit.
Ms. Shapllo then reported the incident to the physician/cardiologist responsible for the patient’s care, as well as to management, and filed a separate complaint through Navex, a third-party firm that facilitates the safe reporting of “unethical and illegal activities,” according to the complaint. After reporting the incident, Ms. Shapllo allegedly overheard a conversation between one of her supervisors and another MA, in which the supervisor cautioned the MA to “tip-toe” around Ms. Shapllo.
On or around Nov. 8, 2025, Ms. Shapllo was notified by the facility’s human resources representative that her requests for Americans with Disabilities Act-related accommodations were denied. In the lawsuit, she alleges that she was notified of the denial in a phone call in which the team “aggressively” questioned her medical condition, suggesting that she did not need accommodation.
On Nov. 11, 2025, Ms. Shapllo learned that in April 2025 the same MA from the first incident had independently written a prescription for metformin for a patient without consulting any licensed practitioners. In addition to being a violation of scope of practice laws and patient safety protocols, metformin was not classified as a cardiological drug and therefore not a prescription that the clinic was permitted to prescribe. She reported the incident to the patient’s cardiologist and to senior management at her next shift on Nov. 13, 2025.
As she was drafting her complaint, she learned of her accommodations denial and that she had been placed on administrative leave by the clinic’s management. Ms. Shapllo was then escorted out of the facility and was not permitted to return to access the whistleblower complaint she was filing using the on-site computers.
On Nov. 14, her employment at the center was terminated for alleged “insubordination and failure to meet expectations.”
Ms. Shapllo is accusing her former employer of violations of the Pennsylvania Whistleblower Act, disability retaliation, lack of compliance with the ADA, and wrongful discharge.
A representative from Penn State Health told Becker’s that it does not comment on pending litigation. Becker’s has also reached out to Ms. Shapllo’s legal team and will update this article if more information becomes available.
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