Patient Photo Consent

It is Tuesday afternoon. A new patient sits across from you. She wants to see a nose like the one she has in mind.

You open your rhinoplasty gallery. Four hundred photos. Then you start wondering which of those patients said yes to being shown?

You do not know. Your front desk does not know. So you guess, or you show less. Neither helps her book.

Now picture the other version. Every photo with consent has already moved to your consultation album. You open it. You search it freely. You are not worried. She sees a result that looks like her. She books.

That is what a patient photo consent form should do. It should make the next consultation easier, not riskier.

Most clinics use one form to do two jobs.

In the United States, a patient photo counts as protected health information under HIPAA. Using it in marketing needs a separate written permission, called an authorization (45 CFR 164.508). It must say which photos, who may use them, where they will appear, how long, and how the patient can take it back.

A single line inside a surgery consent form rarely covers all of this. Photo consent must also be a free choice. If a patient thinks her surgery depends on saying yes, her yes does not count.

You write the form. CureCast makes it easy to use at every visit.

A before and after takes about 10 seconds to create in CureCast. It can become the Instagram post that brings in your next patient.

But only if the patient said yes to social media.

So make your consent to use patient photos on social media specific:

• Name the places. Your website, Instagram, a conference talk. “Social media” is too loose. It covers platforms you have not joined yet.
• Let the patient choose. List every use you might want, like your website or Instagram. Let her cross out any use she does not agree to.
• Say when the consent ends. “Until the patient withdraws” is usually the safer choice. With a fixed date, every post still online on that date is left without consent.
• Plan for changed minds. If a patient withdraws, take the post down and keep the record. Tell her before she signs that copies already saved by others are out of your hands.

A tattoo, a scar, a birthmark, body shape or jewelry can all point to one person. HIPAA also lists full face photos and any comparable image as identifiers. A before and after pair is riskier still, because two photos together show more clues than one.

A blur drawn over a photo can often be removed by whoever receives the file. If you want to de-identify patient photos, the identifying detail must truly be gone.

Usually not

The patient signs. If the patient cannot sign for themselves, a representative signs, and the form says what gives them that right.

For photo consent for minors, a parent or legal guardian signs. Many practices also note the child’s own agreement when the child is old enough. Using a childhood photo years later is a question to ask your adviser, because the person in the photo is now an adult who did not choose it.

Rules differ everywhere. Here is the short version for three of our markets.

Discuss how CureCast fits into your clinical photo workflow, from capturing and organizing patient photos to securely managing them across your practice.

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