Ophthalmology and Optometry Coding Alert

Question: We attended a presentation by a health care marketing organization who said we should be on social media to promote our practice, sharing things like our successful cataract surgeries and our patient satisfaction results. Our office manager thinks this could be a HIPAA mess. Who is right?

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Answer: Social media is a great help to practices, offering an avenue for marketing, education, and patient engagement. However, it’s important to remember that there are limitations to what you can post and who you can interact with online. Disregarding state and federal guidelines may lead to violations down the road.

HIPAA: It takes a thorough knowledge of both HIPAA and social media to fully understand the ramification of an ill-framed tweet or an overzealous Facebook post. Providers must have patients’ authorizations in writing to ensure that they don’t accidentally reveal protected health information (PHI).

Unfortunately, even the savviest online operators can get themselves into hot water and land themselves a HIPAA violation or worse. Physicians, in particular, must be extremely vigilant about their social media presences — or risk the revocation of their medical licenses. Depending on what and how something is posted, physicians can run into trouble with the Stark law or defamation laws, too.

Clinicians must be aware that they are not only liable under federal mandates. The states have the resources to levy hefty punishments as well.

The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB)  offers many resources for physicians to remain compliant with their respective state’s medical boards. They offer these crucial reminders on how missteps on social media can have outsize consequences on your practice, up to and including physician license revocation.

The FSMB’s report, “Model Guidelines for the Appropriate Use of Social Media and Social Networking in Medical Practice,” offers these reminders and guidelines:

“Medical Board Sanctions and Disciplinary Findings State medical boards have the authority to discipline physicians for unprofessional behavior relating to the inappropriate use of social networking media, such as:

• Inappropriate communication with patients online
• Use of the internet for unprofessional behavior
• Online misrepresentation of credentials
• Online violations of patient confidentiality
• Failure to reveal conflicts of interest online
• Online derogatory remarks regarding a patient
• Online depiction of intoxication
• Discriminatory language or practices online.”

“State medical boards have the option to discipline physicians for inappropriate or unprofessional conduct while using social media or social networking websites with actions that range from a letter of reprimand to the revocation of a license,” the FSMB says.

Resource: Find out more about the FSMB’s social media use suggestions here: http://www.fsmb.org/Media/Default/PDF/FSMB/Advocacy/pub-social-media-guidelines.pdf.