California Dental Practice Pays $23,000 Settlement For Potential HIPAA Privacy Violations Involving Yelp Posts
By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law
On December 14, 2022, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) settled with New Vision Dental (NVD) over a potential HIPAA Privacy violation. The California-based dental practice paid $23,000 to OCR and agreed to implement a corrective action plan after allegedly including protected health information (PHI) in its responses to reviews on Yelp.
The Complaint and Investigation.
On November 29, 2017, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) received a complaint alleging New Vision Dental had posted responses to several unfavorable reviews by patients on Yelp and frequently disclosed confidential protected health […]