This webinar provides an overview of core privacy requirements of HIPAA, the basics of which should be well-known and practiced by all health care practitioners.  Then, the subject moves to patient privacy in a digital age, with an emphasis on social media activities of health care practitioners and employees.

How is patient privacy impacted when the patient themselves is posting information on social media?  Should a medical office or health care facility ban the patient themselves from at least certain aspects of social media?  Can the medical office or health care facility even do that?

This webinar thus provides a brief summary of those basic HIPAA privacy protections then goes into detail on the many ways a health care provider may run afoul of the privacy exceptions in a digital age.

Examine the uncertainty about how health care facilities and employers may take action, and may be themselves liable, for HIPAA privacy violations in a digital age.  Erase the uncertainty and doubt that exists when the health care practitioners and facilities attempt to set the rules in advance to govern patient privacy in a digital world.

Patient privacy notices will cover the practitioner’s use of phone calls, texts, e-mails, and mailings, as well as social media and business review sites.

Review the many issues presented when a medical office or health care provider sets an employment policy to maintain confidentiality in a digital age and whether the medical office or health care provider has authority over the patient, either directly or indirectly.

This webinar examines many dos and don’ts of health care facilities and their health care employees as related to HIPAA and patient privacy in the digital age.  Starting with a summary of basic HIPAA privacy protections and an analysis of the core elements of protected health information, this webinar gives practical lists for consideration on setting health care facility policy with regard to its employees and the use of social media in a digital world.  The webinar ends with an overall review of a draft human resources policy manual section on digital privacy that health care facilities and medical offices may use to govern its employees with regard to the use of social media.

HIPAA privacy protections face renewed threats in our digital world.  The basic provisions of privacy for protected health information are well known.  HIPAA has been around more than a dozen years.  HIPAA privacy rules serve to protect health information of the patient from prying eyes, yet the digital age gives rise to new challenges with social media providing new avenues and ways for the unwary health care practitioner to violate HIPAA’s privacy requirements.  This can occur by untrained health care workers at all levels of employment as well as careless, licensed health care practitioners.