The Compliance Divas Podcast
Our podcast covers current topics such as infection prevention and control, OSHA and HIPAA compliance for dentistry. We discuss the latest regulatory information, answer frequently asked questions and give suggestions for dental practices to make compliance easy and sustainable. The Compliance Divas are a trusted source for consistent, accurate information based upon current guidelines, standards, science, and recommendations.
The Compliance Divas Podcast
#175 Are You Putting Your Best Foot Forward on Social Media?
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Social media, such as Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook and others have become very popular marketing channels for dental practices. Join the Divas for a lively discussion on what we should and shouldn't show on these posts if we want to promote the concept safe oral healthcare to our patients.
Welcome. I'm Leslie Cannum. I'm Mary Gavoni.
SPEAKER_02I'm Linda Harvey. I'm Olivia Wan. And together we are the Compliance Divas.
SPEAKER_03Welcome to the Compliance Divas podcast. I'm Mary Gavoni and I'll be the moderator for this episode. This is one of a series of special infection prevention and control episodes during dental infection control awareness month, otherwise known as DICAM. The Compliance Divas bring clarity and simplicity to compliance by navigating regulatory compliance to keep you on course. You can subscribe to the Compliance Divas podcast through your favorite podcast channel or on our website, thecompliancedivas.com. Any resources that we mentioned during this episode will be in the show notes on your podcast app. Again, you can submit any questions to the Compliance Divas at support at the ComplianceDivas.com. So social media has, of course, become very popular with dental practices to promote their practice for marketing purposes, but also as a source of entertainment. And many dental team members individually or teams together are posting on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and others. But in the quest to be funny, are we potentially harming the practice image of a safe oral care or dental care visit? So this is the topic that the V the Divas are going to investigate today. And we encourage your feedback on this podcast. So we're going to start out with Linda.
SPEAKER_01Mary, it's extremely important for dental team members to be wearing the appropriate PPE in videos or photos if they're meant in simulation of patient procedures or anything around the office, demonstrating something in sterilization, for example. And I find that they usually miss the boat on this. Doesn't matter whose office I'm looking at online, whether I know them or not, they typically miss the boat. There's some little something or a couple little things that just aren't right. And I'll give you a few examples. First is having their mask under their chin. They may be sitting chair side or standing next to the patient simulating, you know, with the model of the teeth or an implant, you know, as if they're speaking to the patient, which is fine. We certainly don't need to have a mask at that point. We did during COVID when we had source control mask. So why is the mask under your chin? That just gives a poor image for any practice. Other times, Mary, you don't see that this the staff, whether it's the assistant or the hygienist or the assistant, the doctor or the hygienist are wearing all the PPE correctly. By that I mean the wrist is exposed or they're not wearing a jacket at all, or the jacket is open, or you can see jewelry on top of the jacket. All those lend themselves to be occupational exposures if this is how they are really wearing their PPE during patient care. And when we say the words occupational exposure, that means that you're going to have spray and splatter on your wrist or on the front of your uniform or down, you know, on your collarbone area or your jewelry if it's all exposed. So this is so important because patients are making a judgment about your practice before they even set their foot in the door or before they pick up the phone. Let's backtrack that, Mary. Patients are making a judgment about your practice before they even pick up the phone to call you, which is why dental practices strive so hard to have a big social media presence and have a lot of information about their practice on their website and look warm and inviting and up to date. So up to date means following the guidelines. Mary, I don't know about you and our other divas, but I've seen many offices that on their voicemail that their on-hold message maybe says they follow all the Ocean CDC guidelines or it's stated on their website. I'd like to challenge them to say, have you read the guidelines? Do you have copies in your office like you're supposed to? So let's call ourselves to a higher level when we really want to distinguish our practice. Let's stand out for the right reasons, Mary.
SPEAKER_03Thanks, Linda. I totally agree. And many times I hear from people saying, Well, we're just trying to be funny, or it's not real. Well, patients don't necessarily know that that's not a real procedure. And patients have become so aware of safety measures and infection control protocols because of COVID. So we have, I think, an ethical responsibility to show how we do things the right way. If you want to be funny and you don't have to wear all your PPE, then don't show a simulated dental procedure. There's other options. And having said that, I'd like to call on Leslie to talk about what, you know, what are the influencers doing with um as teams on social media?
SPEAKER_00Well, Mary, I love the um the dances and the parodies that they do to make uh you know attract uh clients and patients to their dental practice and referrals. So there is a great way of having fun that way. And the influencers are really reaching out to the younger uh population of patients because they are on social media all the time. And uh there's some do's and don'ts when you come to social media. Uh, first of all, you do want to make sure that you reflect proper compliance with regulations, and you also want to be perceived as being a fun, warm and friendly practice to join. So your personality needs to come out during your social media post. But we don't want to be uh putting out controversial topics or topics that might uh be considered negative or politically charged. You may offend people. And uh, you know, remember that HIPAA has a large part to play with how we respond and engage with our patients on social media. And we don't want to be in any trouble by disclosing any protected health information. So we want to be certain that we reflect uh that our posts reflect the right image about our practice, that we're careful not to convey uh information to patients or others who are on social media in a negative way. And then just a quick little comment regarding people who work in a dental office, their own social media accounts. Uh when you are in social media, you are a public figure, so to speak. And uh you may not want to display the behavior that you had over the weekend with uh taking multiple shots of beer pong or something like that, or or uh you know, dressing in a scantily or uh swearing or using other type of language that would make a dental professional seem a little bit less professional. As you mentioned, there are other ways to convey that you are warm, engaging, approachable without uh making it look like you are uh perhaps a little out of control.
SPEAKER_03Well, and and there may be some younger listeners who um follow our podcast that are thinking, okay, so you're the OG buzzkill ladies telling us, oh, we always have to do the right thing. We can't ever go have any fun. That's not what we're saying, just be careful of the context. Um, thinking about how it reflects on the practice. Remember the practitioner who was going around the dental facility on a hoverboard and was doing procedures. So we don't want those kinds of things. There can be legal action. So we're gonna call on our diva, um, Olivia, to address whether or not there could be any kind of legal risks to a practice for showing inappropriate things on social media.
SPEAKER_02Mary, I have a huge concern in this area, and like all of the divas has shared, we've all watched these funny videos and laughed and maybe could relate to it. But Mary, what if the video is simulating situations that actually occurred? Maybe it's mimicking a patient patient procedure, or as Leslie mentioned, there may be HIPAA violations, somebody's x-rays are still on the monitor while they are videoing a little video for social media. Or have we ever thought about the fact that maybe an OSHA inspector or a regulatory body uh could be watching these very same videos? And as we saw recently, where this case came out of Knoxville, Tennessee, the video was removed once there was this complaint. But you can't totally remove it. People have it saved, they have it downloaded, they have screenshots. So even if it was determined that the video was inappropriate, you can't erase it completely once it's out there. And could the video that a team member is putting together actually serve as evidence against the practice, evidence supporting that something was inappropriate or not handled properly, not following the standard guidelines from CDC for infection control. So I think that it there's a huge area of violations and having proof of such violations, and it concerns me if these videos are being made without the knowledge of management or the owners of the practice. Because that's going to be a very sorry surprise when there's a formal complaint made against that practice.
SPEAKER_03Thanks, Olivia. And that's kind of been in the back of my mind because of a post that I had seen that was just grossly inappropriate. And the team members who responded to my comments on the social media site said, Oh, it's a joke, it's a joke. People don't necessarily know that that is a joke. And the blowback on me was, you know, you need to get a life, you need to understand, we're just trying to have fun. Not at the expense of infection control, it's just not appropriate. And Leslie, you had a comment you wanted to share.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know what, it's absolutely right, uh, Mary. Um, my parents didn't get me either. Now, my kids don't get my perspective. And one of the things that I have enforced throughout my uh professional life and with my kids is uh to remember that you could be screened out for not getting a job. So if you have social media that reflects you in a poorer light, then it may be something that is used against you when there's a great job that you want to apply for. So where younger individuals, and of course the older as well, you want to make sure that you're not leaving a bad taste in uh when you are posting on social media.
SPEAKER_03This is the total opposite of Las Vegas. What happens in Vegas stays there, but what happens on social media is out there forever for everyone to see. And I think that um listening to our good friend Rita Zamora, who is a social media marketing expert, and she talks about having a plan, and you have to decide how do you want your practice miss or how do you want your practice represented? Do we want it represented as we're safe? We are sticklers for infection control, we do everything we're supposed to do, follow all the guidelines, like we say we do, as Linda mentioned, on our messages on hold and on our websites and all that. Or do we want to be seen as a group of people who don't take dentistry seriously? I think that's a huge issue. And Linda, you had some things you wanted to add.
SPEAKER_01Mary, I'd like to share a couple of stories at a high level about dental practices that have received TIPA fines for divulging protected health information online. While these didn't have to do with pictures of patients or inappropriate PPE in their practice or anything, it had to deal with responding to negative reviews online. And please know there's been three off the top of my head that I can remember. One in Texas that was fined, I believe, $50,000. No, that one was $10,000, I beg your pardon. One in North Carolina that's fine $50,000, and one in California, that was $20,000. So it's important that we take all of this very seriously because part of professionalism, and I know that may sound a little old-fashioned, but it makes a big difference these days because when you think about all of our personal experiences, when we go into either dental offices as patients or we go into medical offices as patients, and you think about how you've been greeted or weren't greeted properly, and were the return um return calls and return information, so it really makes a difference in helping to be just as up to date as possible and being very professional this date and time. That's one way that a practice can distinguish themselves amongst all the competition.
SPEAKER_03Well, and and if you are a specialty practice and you are relying on referrals from your colleagues, and the the colleagues are seeing some kind of interesting and or outrageous videos or pictures or things on social media, it would kind of make you wonder do I really want to refer people there or not? And I also see this continual struggle of dental assistants wanting to be recognized as dental professionals. Then think about, you know, if you're fooling around and you're doing inappropriate things on social media in terms of infection control, is that representing professionalism? And it's probably not. And if you want people to take you seriously. So the issue of the face masks is one where people want to pull them down under their chin or they don't want to wear a face mask when they're um doing a simulated dental profession or dental procedure because they want their face visible. All you have to do then is just put a headshot of yourself along with that post, and they'll see what your face looks like, but you need to be wearing your face mask when you're simulating a procedure. That's very, very important. Um, but the the one that just pushed me over the edge recently was um where a team member was demonstrating how they make sure that the X-ray sensor was positioned correctly and they put it with a barrier on, put it in their mouth, positioned it, and then took it directly from their mouth, didn't take the barrier off, didn't change it, put it in a simulated patient's mouth. That was another team member. And their whole thing was, oh, it's just a joke. That is not a joke, even though it wasn't a true patient. Um, it we just don't do those kinds of things, and we don't show that on social media. So, in closing, just want to remind our listeners that we bring clarity and simplicity to compliance by navigating the regulatory world to keep you on course. If you have questions or comments on this episode, please submit them to support at the compliancedeevas.com. And I don't think we have any resources that we have to share on this particular episode. But obviously, if anyone has questions, they can always go to the CDC dental infection control section on the CDC website if you're not sure what exactly is appropriate for wearing PPE. Thanks for joining us.