Should Doctors Be Friends With Their Patients on Facebook?

The short answer to this question is a big fat no. But let’s dig a little deeper.

Firstly, being personal friends with a patient on Facebook will very likely not fit the requirements of appropriate patient-doctor boundaries. Is it professional to let your patient see a post about your family outing? Or your position on a political issue? Or a photo of you from your freshman year in college? Feel free to have a personal FB account, but limit its privacy settings to family and friends only.

Luckily Facebook is for businesses too. There are many medical organizations on Facebook. The American Medical Association as well as the CDC both have Facebook pages. Even the President has one. It makes sense for doctors to do the same.

So how to set up this professional presence? You’ll need to be logged into your personal FB page, and then head over to https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php and choose “Local Business or Place”. FB will lead you through a number of steps to help you present your practice online: your address, phone number, website, hours of operation etc. All helpful information for your patients.

Looking for ideas of what to share on FB? Here are a few:

• Success stories (with permission from patients)

• News about the practice and advances in your field

• High-level healthcare tips

• Any promotions going on at your practice

• Appropriate holiday wishes

• Contests

• Results from interesting studies

• Links to interesting articles

• Commentary on news media related to your practice

You can also look for ideas on other practice pages.

Regardless of the type of post, it is, of course, important to remain HIPPA compliant.

Happy sharing!

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