bad result, that well-intended recording now becomes a convincing piece of malpractice evidence for a judge and jury to see, in real time. And it is no different if it is the patient rather than the dentist who does the record- ing.
In the world of risk management, many is- sues come to a weighing of pros and cons. Is it worth the risk to record, or allow record- ings of, conversations and procedures in the office?
If the answer is no, then the dentist needs to decide how to have the greatest chance of preventing patients from recording. A dentist in private practice can reasonably take the “my house, my rules” approach, and make it known by posted notices, papers given to patients to read and sign, or verbalized state- ments from staff, that recordings of any kind are not permitted in the office due to privacy concerns.
But if the answer is yes, the dentist might provide immediate gratification to patients who post online their own dentistry before they even leave the dental chair, while simultaneously increasing their own risk, from various perspectives. Ultimately, given the wide array of tech now available, there is essentially no way to prevent the occasional surreptitious recorder — even with the best precautions taken — so a self-protective rule of thumb is to always consider that some- body might be recording everything that goes on, so act only in ways that will not later come back to bite.
To address the issue that some patients might argue that their rights are being violated by preventing in-office recordings, those patients are well within their rights to leave and go to another office that will allow recordings.
Marc Leffler is the MedPro Group Dental Risk Solutions Lead and Head of the Dental Advisory Board. Contact him at
marc.leffler@medpro.com. Dr. Leffler wrote this article for MDA based on an actual member inquiry recieved about this issue. Find risk management resources at medpro. com/dynamic-risk-tools.
ISSUE 2 | SUMMER 2025 | focus 21
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