Can a doctor sue a patient for a negative online review?

in Patient | 15 responses

That’s exactly what’s happening in this case in San Francisco.

Angered by a billing dispute with his chiropractor, a patient posted a negative review on the online review site, Yelp. Now he has to defend his review in court, which is, even if the case is thrown out, not a chance many patients are willing to take.

Indeed, if the medical profession really wants to shut down these sites, a few well publicized lawsuits like this one should do the trick.

On an unrelated note, Yelp itself is being investigated for “removing” negative reviews if the person or company in question purchases advertising on the site. If true, this can damage the integrity of the entire online rating business model.

Both these stories point to some of the obstacles that impede honest, useful, assessments of the medical profession. As patient advocate Trisha Torrey writes, there are already questions surrounding the credibility of sites which provide an online rating of a doctor: “Take other patients’ reviews with a grain of salt. We patients may be great at determining how nice a doctor is, but do you want your choice of doctor being influenced by someone who was just ticked off that she waited in the waiting room for too long? Don’t forget, too — there is nothing to stop the doctor herself, or her spouse or nurses to fill out those ratings questionnaires.”

Will a reputable brand like Zagat clean up the corruption and prove more useful to patients? Perhaps, but given the dismal results that the current online options offer, I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

Comments

Dr. IKE
As with most other things internet, you can never really know what to trust. The veil of anonymity that comes with this medium always makes it easier for one to speak freely…or invent freely. The truth of the matter is the great silent majority that are incredibly pleased with a doctor’s work will likely never raise an issue or write a positive review, you know?
Anonymous
IMHO, any provider rating service would enforce some, if not most, of the following criteria: No anonymous or pseudonymous posts.(Perhaps Verisign , Thawte, or HON could lend credentialing expertise.) The patient must provide concrete, specific reasons for comments. (No stuff like ‘Dr X sucks’ or ‘Dr Y is an @$$hole’.) The provider must be notified of any comment and offered the opportunity to rebut a negative.comment, after which the negative post could be labeled “resolved” (and/or removed) if that is the case. No caching by Google, Wayback Machine, or anything else. No posts from proxied or anonymized sources would be accepted. IP addresses would be logged and tied to the poster. (Kind of like when you call Amex and the IVR says “Good, you’re calling from the phone on your account” or something like that.)
If it’s a pain to post on professional rating sites, perhaps people wouldn’t make comments that could land them in court.
Why anyone would choose a medical professional or facility based on something they read on a website is beyond me. These seem to be the kinds of people who think Wikipedia is a reliable source!
Anonymous
The logic is, online rating works for other domains (food, cars, etc.), why not medicine.
Not so fast:
http://restaurant-hospitality.com/news/bloggers_will_bury_you_0515/
I believe there a lot of unhappy folks out there.
Duncan Cross
Let me say it’s rather ironic to seek doctors looking to the courts to help them punish their patients, given all the belly-aching about malpractice lawyers. (Yes, malpractice and libel are somewhat different issues – but you’ll still need a court either way.) And this wasn’t even a medical doctor, but a chiropractor – that was the guy’s first, perhaps only mistake. Chiropractors and PI lawyers are like peas in a pod, in my experience.
Also, anonymity is an important part of the online experience for patients. I don’t see how someone can write a useful review without being specific about their symptoms and treatment – something most people would never do except anonymously. Require real names, and the reviews would be no more or less negative – but a whole lot more vague. And most people who have been on the Internet for more than, say, twenty minutes come to appreciate which reviews are helpful and what aren’t; it doesn’t take a whole lot of sophistication. Anyway, the reason people would choose a medical professional based on something they read on a website is simply that there’s hardly any other information available.
Anonymous
I learned to put no stock in anonymous rumours long before the web–yes I am that old and have been practicing medicine that long. I also learned that the first step in assessing opinions from a known source is to establish the credibility of that source. The internet lessons that no one bit.
I haven’t been libeled on the internet before. I was slandered by a fellow physician after a gentlemen’s agreement that we would sever our business without public recriminations. I kept my word. He did not. I was eventually vindicated when he self-destructed resulted in a public arrest. If i had it to do over again, I would indeed sue rather than taking those arrows quietly for all that time.
Any professional lives by his reputation and an attack on that ought to be considered seriously by the attacker and taken seriously by the professional.
Tom Passin
Well, I remember reading about research results to the effect that doctors get sued for malpractice mostly when they don’t have a good relationship with the patient. With a good relationship, patients apparently tend not to sue when when something unfortunate develops.
I would think that this would tend to apply to reviews, too.
Reality Rounds
I didn’t realize how hot a topic this is, until I posted an “anti-zagat type rating of doctors” post on the Chicago Tribune website. I was crucified by the public. It seems patients feel like they have no control, and posting reviews of doctors online is redemption. When I discussed the same thing on my own website, I was crucified again, this time by nurses. I will have to put a coat of armor on if I am going to discuss doctors suing patients for bad reviews. When did health care professionals become the enemy, and patients become the victims?
RR
Anonymous
“When did health care professionals become the enemy, and patients become the victims?”
Since when is someone who’s paying thousands of dollars out of pocket for a service not entitled to have opinions about the service that was delivered?
If someone is spreading lies about you, I’d have no problem with you holding them accountable. That said, you all seem to be ignoring how little recourse a patient has when something actually does go awry. Certainly, in my experience, absolutely no one at the clinic/hospital will listen to you. Even the sympathetic types seem very much afraid of losing their jobs should they support the patient. Nobody even says they’re sorry! And you whine about silly reviews.
And, despite the focus on this site toward lawsuits, I know no one — zero, zip, nada — who has ever sued a doctor. I’m sure it happens, but I’m also sure that your insurers and lawyers do everything they can to exaggerate your fear in order to pad their own wallets and justify their existence.
My guess is that some patients turn to the internet review sites as a means of venting after realizing that no one is going to listen to them. Hell, even on this site, if someone pops in with a concern you quickly brand him or her a liar. You have no evidence, but that doesn’t matter — one for all and all for one.
Give people an outlet for their frustration and you probably won’t be seeing those reviews. Expect them to pay up and shut up, and you’ll probably see them continue.
Marilyn Mann
Of course, a doctor CAN sue a patient, but it is rarely a smart or sensible thing to do. First, the fact that the review is negative is insufficient to create a cause of action. For it to be libelous, it must also be false. Put another way, truth is an absolute defense to a libel claim.
The chiropracter is showing very poor judgment by doing this. He says he has lost business because of the posting. Could it be that he has lost business because people do not want to go to a chiropracter who is the habit of suing his patients?
That said, it would be helpful if these kind of sites provided a method for a health provider to tell his or her side of the story. Maybe they already do, I have no idea.
Anonymous
At the clinic at once worked at we solicited and has people who attended to every complaint. If someone was still unhappy they could meet with the medical director. I thought it an excellent idea–both for identifying problem physicians and processes for correction and also for at least diffusing the anger for those cases where no correction is called for because there was no foul–at least they still knew they were heard.
When in private practice I never refused to listen to an complaint for the same reason. Some people are so unreasonable that there is nothing to be said other than listening. Some deserve an apology and got one.
Anonymous
Get your hopes up, Kevin! Online health care ratings can be fair and can help both doctors and patients.
I work at Angie’s List, and we have offered ratings on health care providers since March 2008. We took a lot of time to develop this service – drawing on our 14 years of experience in the consumer ratings niche.
The two things the health care industry most complains about re: online ratings is anonymity and no accountability. We’ve got that covered, and have had for more than a decade:
1. We don’t allow anonymous reviews.
2. Members are held responsible for accurately reporting their experiences. We don’t edit reports, but we closely monitor them to be sure they meet guidelines.
3. Service providers can’t put themselves on the List — only a member can do that.
4. We use both technological and human monitoring to catch attempts to game the system, and we take action against guideline violators.
5. We alert providers the first time a member reports on them and offer – free of charge — to alert them to any future reports so they know what’s being said about them. 6. We also encourage providers to respond either on our List or directly to members.
We share your concerns about anonymous, un-accountable ratings. But Angie’s List is doing it right. Check it out. We’re interested in your feedback.
Cheryl Reed
cherylr@angieslist.com
Anonymous
“Certainly, in my experience, absolutely no one at the clinic/hospital will listen to you.”
I also had similar experiences. I once tried express my feelings after a bad outcome. I wasn’t considering a law suit, and while sorry would have been nice, I didn’t need an apology. I needed medical care. I wanted to work with my providers to resolve the issues I was having. No one was willing to listen to my concerns. I wrote a review instead.
Anonymous
So let me get this straight “a few lawsuits” will probably shut this type of site down (wink, wink).
So you would like to use the legal process to protect against what you see as an unfair injury to your reputation and business bottom line.
But if a patient is injured by truly substandard practice, and suffers an injury, say, causing their death, or a crippling injury, well that’s just unreasonable.
I get it now.
Lucille
Here's one for the books: A plastic surgeon who badly botched my face lift 8 years ago refused my every attempt at civilized, honest communication when I wanted more detailed information about my surgery than what he noted in his operative report. I suffered severe problems with breathing, swallowing, jaw closure, as a direct result of this operation.
His attitude was so deceitful and obnoxious that I put up a website which included documented evidence that he lied about having an anesthesiologist in the OR, posted my medical records and diagnostics proving my medical conditions were cause by his operation. Knowing everything was true, he never sued me during the 7 years the site has been up…until now.
He managed to do this in an unbelievably sleazy manner.. He falsely claimed I sent him email threatening to commit "public suicide" with the intent of "destroying him". His evidence was not email (because I never sent it) but a fabricated message he claims was sent through the comment section of his website.
To make a long and terrifying story short, through his lawyers, he reported this bogus "threat" to the Dept. of Mental Health in Mass. where I live. I was in the middle of making vegetable soup when 5 men in blue uniforms were at my door informing me they were going to take me to the hospital against my will.
I was subjected to removal from the safety of my home to 24 hours in the hospital ER and interviewed by a psychiatrist before I was allowed to leave. This legal (?) stunt was obviously planned well ahead of the purported "suicide threat" as the legal filings prove.
He is suing me for Trademark infringement He trademarked his name and claims I am infringing on this trademark by publishing his name.. which appears on his notes,m reports, etc. all which I have published on my website.
The story appeared in the Indianapolis Business Journal:
http://cms.ibj.com/ASPXPages/6iframes/FrontEndArticlesDetailPage.aspx?ArticleID=35344&NoFrame=1
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