Modern medical practices must comply with many, many laws and regulations. A variety of state and federal regulations control the conduct of medical professionals and the activity of medical organizations. Some of those rules focus on what professionals and businesses can disclose about patients.
Hospitals, private practices and other health care businesses typically have privacy policies. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) made privacy policies mandatory. Businesses generally have to post their privacy policies in a public location and make them readily available to all patients.
Frequently, healthcare providers and medical businesses continue using the same privacy policy indefinitely. However, the privacy policies of the 90s and 00s may not cover all of the major concerns in the modern era. For example, privacy policies and company practices may need updating due to regular use of social media.
What policies do providers need?
A privacy policy compliant with HIPAA generally provides clear information about how a medical business may share medical information with others. It may be necessary to include new language making disclosures about the social media use of individual professionals employed there or social media marketing conducted to draw more attention to the business.
Patients may need to be aware that doctors may talk about their practice. Individual patients may need to provide written disclosures in cases where a professional intends to share private health information about that person online.
Medical organizations may also want to establish the rules about social media use and even recording using mobile phones while at the facility. After all, information uploaded by other patients could compromise the identity of those seeking care at the facility.
When medical organizations update their privacy policies, they may need to provide new copies to their patients and may even need to have them sign written acknowledgments affirming the changes to the existing policy. Digital record-keeping can help speed up that process, as patients can sign remotely acknowledging the changes without waiting for their next medical appointment to physically sign paperwork.
Ensuring proper compliance with HIPAA and all other relevant medical statutes is of the utmost importance for those running health care businesses and licensed medical professionals. Social media creates a new source of exposure that company policies and documents may need to address. Physicians, practice managers and marketing professionals alike need to understand how social media activity could lead to allegations of HIPAA violations in order to protect their interests.