Patients are taking home recordings of their visit with their doctor.
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How often do your staff get phone calls from your patients asking them to clarify something you went over during their appointment? Or how often do they ask if they can record their appointment on their smart phone?
Recently, physicians have started recording their appointments with their patients so they can send it home with them and are encouraging them to listen to the recording once they get home. This allows for patients to research anything the doctor discussed that they might not understand, or it can help them catch something they might have missed. Often times patients get overwhelmed during their visit and things go right over their head. Or if they are very ill, it’s common for them to forget important details or things their physician wants them to follow up on. Being able to take home the recordings enables patients to be more in control of their healthcare.
But what about the risks associated? As with anything digital, there is always the potential of it falling in to the wrong hands. Many physicians have brought up the point of it possibility violating the patients privacy. What if it got hacked? Or if it got misplaced? Could the doctor or hopistal be respondible for a violation of HIPAA? The answer is no; once the recording leaves the physicians office it becomes the patients property. Therefore, if a breach occurs it is on the patient themselves, not their doctor.
How do you feel about recording your visits with your patients? Do you think this is useful or is the risk of a breach too great?
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