A patient filed a complaint in June 2016 alleging that Elite, a privately-owned dental practice, disclosed his or her last name and health condition in a Yelp review response.
An OCR investigation found that the dental practice disclosed multiple patients’ protected health information on Yelp and didn’t have a policy regarding patient information or compliance with HIPAA regulations for social media.
The $10,000 settlement is a substantially reduced amount due to the practice’s size, financial circumstances and cooperation with OCR. Elite will be monitored for HIPAA compliance over the next two years.
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