Should doctors be able to remove bad reviews?

While this site is privately owned and the owner reserves the right to protect his advertisers, I'm not talking about OH. I stumbled across the following site while working and it piqued my interest. Has anyone had experience with this?

doctoredreviews.com/

Medical Justice sells contracts to doctors—we call them “anti-review contracts"— that either expressly prohibit patients’ online reviews or permit patients to post online reviews so long as doctors can remove them whenever they want.  In exchange for these restrictions, the contracts promise patients purportedly greater privacy.  However, this privacy promise is illusory, and the restrictions these contracts impose on online reviews are a bad deal for patients—and everyone else.

Medical Justice’s efforts may be a sign of things to come.  Imagine if other companies used similar contracts.  Before you get a haircut, before you buy a six-pack of soda at the local grocery store or before you order a meal at a restaurant, imagine you were required to keep quiet and never post your opinion online about the product or service you purchased. Sound ridiculous?  It does to us, and we think it’s no less ridiculous when doctors demand this of their patients.

This site explains why anti-review contracts are bad for doctors, bad for patients and bad for online review websites.  We offer practical tips to avoid these contracts.  For more information, explore our website or contact us.

I'm on the mailing list for the Santa Clara Univerity High Tech Institute - I got this a few months ago - and just tracked it down to try to shame a doctor into not using a confidentiality clause.

http://law.scu.edu/blog/hightech/doctoredreviewscom-new-webs ite-created-by-htli-and-samuelson-clinic-exposes-move-to-squ elch-patients-online-reviews.cfm

Doctoredreviews.com: New website created by HTLI and Samuelson Clinic exposes move to squelch patients' online reviews

April 13, 2011 at 11:36 AM

SANTA CLARA and BERKELEY, CA, April 13, 2011 —Some U.S. doctors are using a questionable legal strategy to restrict patients’ rights to post online reviews about their medical care. In response, Santa Clara University’s High Tech Law Institute and UC Berkeley Law School’s Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic have created a new website, doctoredreviews.com, to expose the legal and ethical risks of restricting a patient’s right to free speech.

A private company, Medical Justice, has been marketing a contract to doctors designed to give them the legal right to expunge critical online comments. The company, originally formed to ward off malpractice suits, says the contracts give doctors the right to remove patients’ posts on sites like Yelp or Angie’s List— even if the comments are truthful and accurate.
“This practice poses a grave threat to the integrity of online consumer reviews," said Eric Goldman, director of Santa Clara University’s High Tech Law Institute and a former general counsel to Epinions.com. “Doctors are trying to misuse a loophole in copyright law so that they can suppress any patients' reviews they don't like."

Patients are typically asked to sign the contract before they first see a physician—often as part of a thick stack of other paperwork. As a result, patients may not realize that they’re relinquishing their rights to review the doctor. The contracts also promise greater privacy, but patients are already protected under federal and state information privacy laws.
“Doctors who use these gag-order contracts are essentially telling patients ‘if you want medical care, you must sign away your right to free speech,’" said Jason Schultz, co-director of Berkeley Law’s Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic. Schultz says this may be counterproductive for both patients and physicians, as many patients now want to see reviews—both good and bad—from other patients before choosing a doctor.

Rather than remove reviews from patients, doctors may publicly respond to negative reviews, said Schultz, as long as they maintain their patients’ anonymity. “More speech is the answer," he said, “not censorship and copyright abuse."

Schultz said the contracts could violate consumer protection laws and medical ethics rules, by using deceptive language and by putting a doctor’s financial interest ahead of the patient’s.
The doctoredreviews.com website delves into these issues in more depth with information for patients, doctors, and online review sites. The site includes:
* Copies of the anti-review contracts.
* Suggested responses for patients asked to sign anti-review contracts.
* Material for doctors on why these contracts may be bad for business.
* Information for online review sites on why they do not need to honor takedown notices from participating doctors.
* Details about existing federal and state health information privacy laws that protect patient confidentiality.

Media Contacts:
Deborah Lohse | Santa Clara University | 408.554.5121 | [email protected],
Susan Gluss | UC Berkeley Law | 510.642.6936 | [email protected]
 

Interesting, Diana.  The first time I came across this was about 6 months ago when a plastic surgeon I consulted with required patients to sign a confidentiality agreement.  I wasn;t comfortable with that so didn't seriously consider him.

Maybe we could pull out and insist on a tit for tat contract:

"If I am in any way dissatisfied with your service, in return for my confidentiality you agree to pay the full cost of whoever I choose and whatever method I choose to correct your mistake to my satisfaction with an equal sum paid to me for my silence and inconvenience. "

I would love to see the legality of these contracts challenged in court.

Many doctors like to forget that they are being paid to perform a service. Instead of white coats, they should be issued blue, short sleeved work shirts with their name on a patch over the pocket. White with red trim and embroidery. Dr. Robert Klein would become "Bobby."