A registered practical nurse posted a med pass on TikTok and was terminated from work, and is now dealing with a Board of Nursing investigation due to a potential HIPAA violation. Disclosing protected health information (PHI) on social media without patient consent violates the HIPAA Privacy Law. The HIPAA Privacy Law typically restricts uses and disclosures of PHI to those necessary for treatment, payment, and medical procedures. Other uses and disclosures need patient consent.
A HIPAA violation can have severe consequences for a medical practitioner. It could prompt a verbal or written warning, but for disclosing PHI on social media, work termination is likely the result, and more. Licensing organizations could start investigations, and when a HIPAA violation is verified, a medical practitioner could be reprimanded or sanctioned, pay a financial penalty, or suffer a brief or permanent loss of license to practice. Even though there is no HIPAA violation, the individual could be sanctioned due to unprofessional or unethical behavior. A HIPAA violation or violation of state legislation could also result in criminal charges, with a resulting fine or arrest.
Social media platforms, like Tiktok and Facebook, feature livestreaming, and users can shoot videos and post them to their social media accounts instantaneously. The platform account setting typically allows sharing of videos with the user’s list of contacts. However, livestreaming makes the video available to anyone. Livestreaming at your workplace is highly at risk of an inadvertent HIPAA violation, for example, unintentionally taking a video of the patients, documents that contain PHI, or computer monitors displaying medical data.
One example of a livestreaming incident in May 2025 involves a registered practical nurse who used livestreaming at work at the time of a med pass. In the TikTok Live, nurse Yazz Scott was preparing some medications. She didn’t take a video of any patient, and said she was not showing any patient data. Several people watching the live warned the nurse that she was breaking HIPAA rules. One commenter even said she might lose her medical license.
The nurse dismissed the viewers’ comments, saying she’s not showing any patient data. She also said that she knew about HIPAA since she’s been in the healthcare industry for a while.
Although the nurse was not showing patient data while opening medications, some patient data were visible, although hardly visible. Also, while livestreaming, a patient’s name was mentioned on several occasions. The nurse likewise showed herself committing a medication mistake, possibly because of a lack of focus. She was also seen using her teeth to open a package and administering a lidocaine patch to an individual at the incorrect schedule. She went back to the patient and removed the patch after realizing her mistake, but her action was clear and livestreamed.
Tiktok users shared the post widely, thus it was expected that complaints would be filed with the state Board of Nursing and the nurse’s employer. In a succeeding TikTok Live, the nurse mentioned that she just graduated from nursing school last summer. She apologized and confessed her mistake; for that mistake, she was suspended and later terminated from work. The state Board of Nursing investigated her medication error and probable HIPAA violation. The nurse has deleted the recording from her TikTok account, but the copies shared online are still viewable.
The incident is a warning to all medical professionals not to record video in the workplace and post on social media. It is not wrong to talk about one’s healthcare experiences on social media to support a cause or to educate. However, there is a substantial risk of a HIPAA violation if creating video content at work. Even when taking care not to disclose patient information, live streaming or using social media during work is a distraction and could lead to medication error or a penalty for unprofessional behavior.