Dive Brief:
- Practice Fusion recently settled with the Federal Trade Commission over accusations of misleading patients by soliciting reviews for doctors and publicly posting responses.
- Practice Fusion allegedly did not inform patients that responses would be publicly posted and many of the publicly posted responses contained highly personal, sensitive health information.
- The FTC’s final order prohibits Practice Fusion from making deceptive statements about the intended use of patient information, requires affirmative express consent to use patient information and prevents Practice Fusion from publicly posting some previously collected patient information.
Dive Insight:
Practice Fusion had been accused of misleading patients into providing physician reviews to populate a publicly available physician directory launched in 2013.
Practice Fusion began soliciting patients for reviews in April 2012, sending emails to patients of physicians using Practice Fusion EHRs. However, these emails appeared to be from physicians themselves rather than from Practice Fusion and they did not clearly state that responses would be publicly posted. Many responses included personal health information and some patients even included their full names and contact information.
According to the settlement with the FTC, Practice Fusion can no longer publicly use reviews collected during the complaint period. Practice Fusion has also agreed to cease making misleading statements about the privacy of information it collects, to more conspicuously declare its intentions and to collect affirmative consent from patients prior to using their information.
Although the terms of the settlement are specific to the Practice Fusion complaint, health IT companies, healthcare review platforms and providers would be doing themselves a service by following these guidelines. As people get more used to using and posting on social media platforms, it's important to remember what can and can't be done under HIPAA as providers in the social media/online reviewing space.
