Your Social Media & HIPAA

Odds are, you spend time on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or some other social media site. You post about your day, feelings, opinions, or just like and share posts you relate to or find entertaining. As a healthcare employee, it’s crucial to be cautious when posting on your social media accounts. You can expect costly organization fines or to be seriously disciplined, even fired if you violate HIPAA regulations. 

HIPAA Regulations

HIPPA is The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability ACT. It states that PHI, or “protected health information”, in healthcare must be safeguarded. So this means any single piece of information or detail that can be used to personally identify an individual must be kept confidential. For more information on the policy please refer to the Department of Human Health and Services Social Media Policy.

What Happens if I Accidentally Violate HIPAA

In NCSBN’s “Nurses Guide to Social Media“, Bob, an LPN who worked for the company for 20 years, found himself in a sticky situation. He knew the importance of PHI and asked for consent from a patient’s brother to take a photo since the patient herself could not, due to her physical and mental condition. Later, Bob was talking to a former employee and showed him the photo and briefly discussed about the patient. When the company found out, they terminated Bob for breach of confidentiality.

Avoid This

Since healthcare professionals need to protect patients’ PHI, you don’t want to post anything that can identify a patient. This includes: Social Security numbers, medical data, birth dates, addresses, photos, financial information and more. Because this list is ongoing, if you are ever questioning whether or not to post something, be sure to ask first. If you do receive consent to take a photo, as Bob did in our story above, you still do not have written consent to share the photo with anyone or discuss any patient information. 

Do This 

Your social media tells a lot about you, and it’s common today for employees to be reprimanded or even fired for their actions on social media. When posting, liking or sharing on your profile be sure to:

1. Use appropriate language: if you wouldn’t say it at work, it’s probably best to keep it offline and off your profile

2. Stay out of arguments: online arguments can get pretty aggressive and once you write something online, it never really goes away…even if you delete it

3. Keep PHI in mind: If you ever talk about your job, whether it’s on your podcast, Instagram story, private video message or literally anywhere else, make sure to keep patient information out of the story.

Be aware and keep HIPAA in mind when posting on your social media!