Are You Listing Your Staff Correctly On Your Website?

Are you listing your employees correctly on your website, in your office, in your social media ads, and in your print ads? Here is how you can protect yourself and your staff from violations.

Transcript:

In previous videos, we have covered the requirement for name badges in your office, and how important it is for those who have direct interaction with patients to have the appropriate name badges, names, and credentials attached to those name badges as well. Well, today we’re going to talk about a bit broader of requirements that are required under the Truth and Healthcare Professional Services Act. This Act is specific to anyone who is in your office or who treats human ailments and is also subject to licensure in the state, or as a student, I’ll talk about students later. But really what we want to focus on are those in your offices, that are one, treating patients and two, licensed in the state.

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There is a specific requirement that each of them meet a few obligations. The first is this. And this is really, really important. Any advertising that you do at all, whether it be your website, social media, print, advertising, radio, television, or whatever, where someone who in your office, who is licensed is either featured mentioned, listed, or shown, you have to include not just their name, but also their credentials for their license in Illinois. This should be the initials that come after their name, for example, DC for Doctor of Chiropractic, or exactly who they are, and what they do in your office. So maybe it’s a licensed massage therapist or for physicians, of course, it’s a chiropractic physician. So those are required elements for all of your advertising, regardless of what it is, you want to make sure that you meet that. It’s specifically talked about in the, again, the Truth and Healthcare Professional Services Act. So anybody who treats human conditions, and who is licensed in the state, that’s who this applies to.

So one, advertising. Two, is also you want to make sure that you have a written description if you will, a written display in your office, that includes their name, and also their credentials, and what license that they have. So this again, licensed massage therapist, it would be, you know, Jane Smith, LMT, or licensed massage therapist, if you’re considering them to be a licensed massage therapist in your office, much like you would do for a chiropractic physician. This is really important as well, it has to be in a conspicuous location, you can’t just meet the requirements of this law by sticking a notification or a listing in your break room, that doesn’t count. That’s not something that’s conspicuous to all of the patients. So you want to make sure that you have that. Typically, you want to put it in your waiting room or in a standard room that this person would treat in and make sure that it’s clearly listed. And so that is really important as well.

Last, is named badges. And we’ve covered all of that in the past. And so you want to look at that video to walk through exactly what all of that looks like. But again, their name and their credentials have to be on name badges. So we have any advertising you do at all, their name badges, the office display, as we talked about underwriting. Now, what if you have multiple offices? Yes, you have to include all of this information in each one of your different locations, you can’t just put it in your primary location, say good enough, it actually has to be in every single one of the locations that you have someone who is licensed, who is treating people and their name and their credentials, and each one of those locations, and also advertising as relates to any of those. And again, what does that advertising include? This is a really big one because I see this mistake all the time – make sure that your website is up to date. That’s the biggest one because that’s the easiest one to miss right? Postings on social media, any kind of advertisement that you’re really doing for patient outreach, and advertising that also counts, print advertising, radio, advertising, television, whatever you’re doing, just make sure that you’re properly identifying the people. Here’s why – one is it the violation, and then what does that look like? Okay, so it’s a single violation? No, actually, it’s a violation for every single day that that’s listed can be considered a separate violation. So if you do it for a year, 365 different violations. So the easiest thing to do is just take a few minutes over lunch today, and review your website, review your social media, and make sure that everybody who is licensed and who is doing patient care treatment in your office is properly listed with their name and their credentials.

Now, students I mentioned that at the very beginning, what does that look like? Well, if you happen to be working directly with a chiropractic college and you’re and you’re working under the auspices, and you have a student in your office who’s providing patient care by the way, you want to make sure that they are also listed just like that, that they’re a chiropractic student. That is really important. So you’d list their name and that their chiropractic student, the student has to be emphasized. You want to make sure that that is included that is very important, specifically called out in the Truth and Healthcare Professional Services Act that is required. So the biggest thing is this just make sure the students have the appropriate name badge that lists them as a chiropractic student. Or if you have students have other licenses in your office that you’re that you’re working through maybe their preceptor requirements or their hours requirements in conjunction with their training and their schooling. There are specific rules for that for chiropractic physicians, check with the ICS first before you head down that road. Hopefully, all of this helps you out. But take the time today to go through all of your advertising to make sure that you’re hitting all the high marks and listing everyone in your office who’s doing patient care and listing them correctly. We’ll catch you next week.