When Responding To Negative Yelp Reviews, Some Doctors Reveal Patients’ Private Medical Information
ProPublica has been granted access to Yelp's trove of public reviews and finds that some providers may be violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act when they refute negative reviews.
The Washington Post/ProPublica:
Doctors Fire Back At Bad Yelp Reviews — And Reveal Patients’ Information Online
Burned by negative reviews, some health providers are casting their patients’ privacy aside and sharing intimate details online as they try to rebut criticism. In the course of these arguments -- which have spilled out publicly on ratings sites like Yelp — doctors, dentists, chiropractors and massage therapists, among others, have divulged details of patients’ diagnoses, treatments and idiosyncrasies. (Ornstein, 5/27)
Meanwhile, medical privacy issues can be tricky for parents and family members of adults —
Kaiser Health News:
When Adult Children Get Sick, It May Be Hard For Parents To Get Information
When Sean Meyers was in a car accident on a November evening three years ago, he was flown by air ambulance to the emergency department at Inova Fairfax Hospital, in Northern Virginia. With his arm broken in four places, a busted knee and severe bruising to his upper body, Meyers, 29, was admitted to the hospital. While badly hurt, his injuries didn’t seem life threatening. When his car went off the road, Meyers had been on his way to visit his parents, who live nearby in Sterling. They rushed to the hospital that night to wait for news and to be available if Sean or the hospital staff needed anything. But beyond the barest details, no one from the hospital talked with them about their son’s condition or care, not that night nor during the next 10 days while he was hospitalized. (Andrews, 5/31)
