Social Media Etiquette for Mental Health Clinicians

“Not only is it appropriate for clinicians to be online, but it is needed,” says Nishi Bhopal, MD, founder and medical director of telepsychiatry practice Pacific Integrative Psychiatry.

In Part 2 of this Q&A, Dr Bhopal provides practical guidance for clinicians seeking to maintain a professional and ethical social media presence. She addresses HIPAA compliance, medical disclaimers, and protecting one’s own privacy.

Missed Part 1 of this interview? Find it here: Leveraging Social Media to Support Your Practice

For more expert insights for your virtual practice, visit our Telehealth Excellence Forum.

Psych Congress Network: What strategies can clinicians employ to maintain professional and ethical boundaries while being active on social media?

Nishi Bhopal, MD: As clinicians, we need to protect ourselves when we're online, but we also need to be protect our patients.

We don't want to reveal any sensitive patient health information online. We want stay within the bounds of HIPAA compliance. What this means practically is, for example, when I'm speaking about a clinical experience that I've had online, I'm not sharing, "Oh, I saw this patient this morning who said X," because I don't want my patient to be able to identify themselves in my social media content. I want to keep it generic enough that people can relate to it and go, "Oh, wow, that really resonates with me," but not to be able to say, "Oh, wait, I talked to her about that, and that's me she's talking about.” We don't want to get into that domain.

We also want to maintain the limits of our medical license and not provide medical information to people online, right? We're not providing specific medical advice. So, using disclaimers is really important, making it clear that what you're sharing is informational only, that it's not medical advice. On all of my YouTube videos, I have that disclaimer in there. It's just kind of written on the screen. Or if you're speaking live, you want to make sure that you say that. If people comment—this happens to me a lot, people will comment and ask about sleep issues, which is one of my subspecialties. “Should I be taking melatonin, or should I be taking X supplement, or how do I get off this medication?” When you're answering comments, you do want to provide the information. We don't want to be ignoring the comments because it is social media, it's all about being social. But we can provide general guidelines. So, what I might say to somebody is, “Well, generally speaking, these are the dose ranges for that type of supplement but make sure you speak to your healthcare practitioner for specific advice.” So that's how we can best protect ourselves.

The last thing I'll add to this is protecting your own privacy. One of the concerns I hear from clinicians is that they don't want to go online because they're private and they don't want their private life to be online. I feel that way as well. I'm a very private person But, we're not revealing private information about ourselves online. I would rather, if somebody Googled my name, that they find all of my educational content rather than private or personal information about maybe where I live or who I'm married to or who my family members might be. I would rather that information be buried on page 10 of Google versus on the first few pages, it's all my educational content.

So social media can actually be a way to protect your privacy, which sounds a little counterintuitive.

PCN: Does that mean you remain conscious and intentional about things like the framing of your videos, making sure it doesn’t reveal personal information about where you live, for example?

Dr Bhopal: Yes. When I record my videos, I record them in my home office and so it's the same office setup that a patient might see if I'm seeing them on Zoom. I might reveal some personal things, you know—people might know that I'm originally from Canada, they might know that I'm married, that I have a dog, these kinds of general things. But when it comes to very personal specific things like what neighborhood I live in, or, other information I might not want to be revealed, I'm not sharing that on social media.

PCN: Which misconceptions on this topic would you like to clarify for our audience?

Dr Bhopal: I think the biggest one is that as clinicians we shouldn't be on social media. I hear this a lot from colleagues: “I'm a psychiatrist or I'm a mental health practitioner. It's not appropriate for me to be on social media.” I think that's a big misconception because not only are patients looking for information online, but they’re also looking for practitioners who can help them.

So, what I say to practitioners is to think about the patient out there who is seeking your services. They're struggling with anxiety, or depression, or panic, and they can't get into anyone because you know clinics have these long wait lists and they're looking for somebody who can help them. If you are not online, you're actually doing them a disservice because they're not able to find you.

In the end, not only is it appropriate for clinicians to be online, but it is needed.

Interested readers can explore Dr Bhopal's YouTube Channel here.

Nishi Bhopal, MD, is board-certified in psychiatry, sleep medicine, and integrative holistic medicine. She graduated from the University College Cork School of Medicine, completed her psychiatric residency at Henry Ford Health System, and a fellowship in sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is the founder and medical director of Pacific Integrative Psychiatry, an online practice in California where patients receive a whole-person approach to anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders, including nutrition, psychotherapy, and integrative and functional medicine. In addition to her private practice, Dr Bhopal is the founder of IntraBalance, an educational platform for physicians and therapists that includes a YouTube channel and online courses on clinical sleep medicine for healthcare practitioners. Her passion is making clinical sleep medicine easy to understand and accessible to all.