(DailyVantage.com) – A Tennessee dental office deleted its social media accounts and took down its website after blowback over a video employees posted online that showed them reading from a patient’s journal and mocking the contents.
Premier Dental Group in Knoxville, Tennessee took down its Facebook page and website after addressing the outrage prompted by the video. The dental group condemned the actions of the staff seen in the video that was reposted on multiple social media platforms, including TikTok, Reddit, and Facebook before its online presence went dark.
The video showed dental office staff listening as one staffer reads aloud from what appears to be a patient’s diary. The video was first posted on Snapchat with a caption that included, “now it’s story time lmfao.”
A statement posted to the dental office’s Google profile apologized for the incident and said the staffers involved had been fired.
Premier Dental Group described the video as “inappropriate” and said the employees involved behaved in a “disrespectful and unprofessional manner.” The office said it regretted the incident and any hurt it may have caused.
The dental office also apologized to the patient as well as family and friends, and insisted that the behavior of the employees did not reflect Premier Dental Group’s values or its standard of respecting the privacy and dignity of others. The practice said it would review its policies to ensure that nothing like this happened again.
This isn’t the first time Premier Dental Group has been the center of controversy.
Last year, the office agreed to pay nearly $1 million to resolve allegations by the US Attorney’s Office that Premier Dental Group and its owner Dr. Michael Sawaf submitted false claims to TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program.
The dental office was accused of falsely identifying credentialed dentists as the service providers when the services were rendered by uncredentialed dentists who were not eligible to bill TennCare.
Premier Dental was accused of violating the federal False Claims Act and Tennessee’s Medicaid False Claims Act.
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