Florida physician fined for posting patient information on Yelp

Florida physician Michael J. Hall, MD, was fined $10,000 as part of his settlement with the Florida Board of Medicine after he posted a former patient’s health information on the website Yelp. According to the complaint, in 2015 Hall posted that the patient, identified in documents as C.B., was a fire inspector who “used her badge to fraudulently obtain narcotics and has seen over 28 doctors in Florida for numerous prescriptions, pills and medical services.”

Hall first saw C.B. for opiate addiction and Suboxone maintenance in June 2013. After writing her a prescription for Suboxone, a prescription used to treat opioid use disorder, he claimed she never returned to the office for the required follow-up exam.

The settlement was officially approved on December 6 by the Florida Board of Medicine, although C.B. attended the board meeting to request that it be rejected. She asserted that she had lost her job as a result of Hall’s Yelp post and that the underlying issue between the two was simply her failure to pay her medical bills on time.

C.B. also insisted that Hall’s allegations were not true while Hall stated that she had threatened both his life and his practice, which he reported to the police. Hall also held that he did not violate confidentiality because the information he posted was contained in both a civil lawsuit and a police report, all available for public viewing. However, the Florida Board of Medicine declined to share this view.

As part of the settlement, Hall was not required to acknowledge any wrongdoing.

Source: Florida Politics