Overview of General Guidelines
This document is an outline of standard do’s and don’ts for engaging on social media with Western Dental.
Western Dental welcomes users to contribute different kinds of content, including reviews, comments, photos, videos, private messages, and more. Being respectful to others is expected, but each may have his/her own definition of respect, which is why we have put together these general guidelines.
- Inappropriate content: Playful language and imagery is acceptable, however profanity, threats, harassment, lewdness, hate speech, and other displays of bigotry. This type of content is not conducive to a customer service environment, and may be inappropriate / offensive to others within the community and will be deleted immediately. If a user continues after this point, they will be banned from our branded pages.
- Promotional content: Unless you are promoting Western Dental, we generally frown upon promotional content, as it does not add much value to the community. In an effort to remain helpful to our community, please refrain from posting promotional content that may be distracting, or considered spam.
- Relevance: Please make sure your contributions are relevant and appropriate to the community. In order for us to help you best, or provide value, please keep reviews, comments, and other posts specific to your patient experience – negative or positive, both are welcome.
- HIPAA Regulations and Privacy: HIPAA is the acronym for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act that was passed by Congress in 1996. We are extremely limited in what we may comment on, or mention in a public forum. With respect to HIPAA and social media, we are primarily concerned with:
- Protection of your health care information on electronic billing and other processes; and
- Protection and confidential handling of your protected health information
Western Dental will not:
- Publish photos of patients without signed consent forms for approval and posting.
- Publish, mention, or discuss any private patient information online or share information that will link back to a patient; even inadvertent seemingly harmless disclosure of details about a patient without his or her consent may be used to potentially identify the patient and could violate HIPAA and state privacy laws.
We ask that you do not:
- Publicize other people’s private information. This includes reaching out publicly on behalf of a friend, or family member.
- Please do not post close-up photos or videos of other patients without their permission, and please do not post other people’s full names unless you are referring to service providers who are commonly identified by or commonly share their own full names.