Your Response to a Negative Patient Review Could be a HIPAA Violation

By FDA Chief Legal Officer Casey Stoutamire

Did you know your response to a negative review from a disgruntled patient or family member could be a violation of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)? There is no HIPAA exception that allows a health care provider to disclose a patient’s protected health information (PHI) in response to a negative review. HIPAA generally prohibits dentists (and all health care providers) from using or disclosing a patient’s PHI without his or her consent. As a reminder, PHI includes information that “relates to the past, present or future physical or mental health or condition of an individual [or] the provision of health care to an individual, and … that identifies the individual, or with respect to which there is a reasonable basis to believe the information can be used to identify the individual.” (45 CFR 160.103) This means that posting any information that identifies someone as your patient violates HIPAA, even if specific medical information is not posted or disclosed.

The next question is, “How can I respond to a negative review?” Our first piece of advice is to just ignore it and try to generate more positive reviews to offset the negative one. In addition, you could reach out to the patient to try and resolve the problem. Usually, when someone posts a negative review, they are frustrated and want their voice to be heard. If you can resolve the situation, you may be able to convince the patient to take down the negative review. And even if you cannot resolve the issue, ask the patient to give you a HIPAA-compliant authorization that would allow you to respond appropriately to the negative review.

Now, we know ignoring a post is not going to sit well with some of you! If you feel you must respond, it should be generic. Your response cannot confirm that the patient received care at your office. Instead, you could describe your general practices and policies and then ask the disgruntled person to contact your office to discuss things further. It goes without saying that if you do respond, take a deep breath before doing so to calm down and be polite, professional and sensitive to the disgruntled person’s perspective.

To read more on negative reviews, check out a past “Chew on This” at vimeo.com/556207196.

FDA Chief Legal Officer Casey Stoutamire can be reached at cstoutamire@floridadental.org.