How often do we catch ourselves talking about someone else? Gossip is a casual conversation about other people which can be positive, neutral, or negative. A study found that the average person spends almost an hour per day gossiping.
These conversations are detrimental in the workplace. It’s unproductive and wastes time, as I just mentioned, and it causes a lack of trust among coworkers. But it’s even worse at health practices.
Employee gossip is one of the most common causes of HIPAA violations. The reason that gossip is so common is that it happens so naturally. It’s easy to fill conversations with stories of other people, and it’s hard to catch ourselves doing it or recognize what qualifies as oversharing.
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While gossiping should always be off-limits, employees should especially avoid it in common areas. Medical facilities have so many areas where someone else could be right around the corner. Even if you have the authorization to talk about a patient with another coworker or the family, you should still do this in a private space.
If someone overhears you talking about another patient, they’ll lose trust in your practice for not being careful with sensitive details.
Sharing stories outside of work is also unacceptable. You might think it’s safe because no one from work can overhear, and your family or friends won’t even see the person. But even then, you shouldn’t share these stories. You never know who someone else might tell or who they might know.
Social media might not seem like a form of gossip, but it is. Talking about patients online is just as bad, if not worse, as talking about them in person. You have way less control over where the information goes once it’s online.
Anyone can screenshot, save, or send anything to another person who wouldn’t normally see your posts. Even if you realize you made a mistake and delete your post, there’s no way to know who is already reached. As the saying goes, “Once it’s on the Internet, it’s there forever.” And it has the potential to become so much more widespread.
Now, sometimes patients or employees will specifically ask you about another patient. This is a difficult situation to deal with. We might feel rude to point out that it isn’t their business. It’s hard to know on the spot if a coworker has authorization or if they’re just being nosy. It would be awkward to look like you don’t trust them since you have to see each other all the time at work.
And patients who ask about others might be genuinely concerned or looking for hope for their own experience. Whether it’s with patients or other coworkers, most employees feel uncomfortable having these conversations. But the problem is that they don’t know how to respond.
You can imagine feeling flustered or overwhelmed to speak up on the spot that you aren’t allowed to talk about it with them. In order to avoid these awkward and dangerous situations, practices need to cover this section within its annual HIPAA training sessions.
Finally, people will try prompting you to gossip about a patient because they claim that they’re family. Okay, let’s say that they are actually related. This doesn’t automatically make them authorized to know the patient’s health information.
Sometimes it’s with the best intentions, but other times it’s just out of curiosity. Thankfully, the HIPAA Privacy Rule outlines what’s permissible to share and who to share it with. This guides all health employees on withholding or giving details to a family member or friend.
Even though your conversations about someone else might not be negative or malicious, they can still be harmful. Gossiping damages trust between people and makes for uncomfortable situations.
Most people aren’t okay with talking about others, but it’s hard for them to voice that. Even worse, there can be legal consequences. Maybe you missed this lesson from your practice’s HIPAA training, but talking about patients without a purpose or to an unauthorized person is never okay.
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