News

How To Respond To Online Patient Reviews To Avoid HIPAA Violations

How to Respond to Online Patient Reviews to Avoid HIPAA Violations
by Ali Oromchian JD, LLM

When growing your dental practice, you probably have considered or dealt with online reviews as part of your social media or communications platforms. But even with the wonderful opportunities that online reviews can provide, certain cautions should be noted to prevent Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) violations.

There often are misconceptions about what HIPAA violations can be. For instance, most people know that HIPAA prevents a dentist or a dental practice from supplying any personal information about a patient to any third party.

What people may not realize is that HIPAA even prevents a dentist or a dental practice from divulging that a person is a patient of the practice. In addition, should patients choose to disclose information to the public of their own accord, that is still not a sufficient waiver of their rights that would allow a dentist or dental practice to disclose that same or any other information.

While it is important that you not state certain things to avoid HIPAA violations, there are, however, a number of ways in which you can and should properly respond to online reviews.

What You Should Do

First, you should develop a set of relatively generic responses for various online review situations. For instance, statements referring to the policies and procedures of the office can help protect and insulate your dental practice from liability.

In response to a complaint about your paperwork process taking too long, your practice could state that “It is our policy that paperwork must be filled out prior to evaluation by our team.” This statement is short, sweet, and to the point, while also providing valid and accurate information to other people who may be reading the review.

Timely response to online reviews is the key to resolving issues before they have been posted for too long. One good rule of thumb is to respond to a posting within two to three days, if it is feasible. This, itself, can be addressed through periodic monitoring of review sites. If you do not have the opportunity to respond on a timely basis, a generic response thanking posters for their review may be sufficient.

Further, you always have the alternative opportunity to respond directly to a complaint by privately responding to patients and by contacting them offline to resolve their issue. However, should the reviewer be listed as anonymous, do not attempt to make any assumptions about who the patient might be because you may presume wrong.

Read full article on Dentistry Today.