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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

I would think that this would tend to apply to reviews, too.