Fader Quoted in Article on Responding to Negative Reviews
May 18, 2022 |Eric Fader was quoted in the PartB News article, “Did your practice get burned online? Reach out — and redirect.”
The article examines what providers should do when they receive a negative review. Responding can make matters worse or even violate HIPAA.
Even if a patient discloses much of his or her own private health information, it is still not a good idea to respond. Fader said he advised one of his clients a few years ago to not respond to a review in which the patient provided several treatment details because, “while obviously under HIPAA a patient can disclose his own PHI, if you as the practitioner add anything at a public site that goes beyond what the patient disclosed, that’s a HIPAA violation.”
In addition to the potential compliance issues, there’s the impression an online argument with a patient might leave, no matter how right you think you are, Fader says.
“If you have a patient ranting and raving on the site and you responded [on the merits], even if it were not a HIPAA violation, you still wouldn’t come off looking better to an unbiased observer,” he says. At best you might respond: “I’m sorry you feel that way, we disagree; we can’t say anything further.” But silence is probably the better option.
Read the full article here.
