13 ms·

Doctors and dentists tell patients, "all your review are belong to us"

187 points by chanks 15y ago

bugsy 15y ago
It seems the obvious thing to do would be to have a site that collects the names and addresses of the doctors and dentists who are so incompetent that they fear reviews.
- cosgroveb 15y ago
  I'm not a Doctor but I seem to think if I were at least competent with a good bedside manner that the best play would be to encourage patient reviews. You are always going to get a few bad apples, but people appreciate transparency and I bet that would translate to more/better reviews. I could be completely wrong though. You would probably want to A/B test it ;)
  - hugh3 15y ago
    It's difficult to know. It only takes one complete horror story to drive a lot of patients away, and the person telling the horror story may not necessarily know what he's talking about. At least when I read hotel reviews on tripadvisor I know enough to tell when the one-star reviews are based on real complaints ("Cockroaches all over the room") or excessively picky customers ("Desk clerk rolled his eyes the third time I requested to be shifted to a room with a better view"). But if I read "Doctor Smith botched my surgery, and I lost both my legs" I'm at a loss. Did Doctor Smith really botch the surgery? Or did Doctor Smith's heroic and brilliant surgical intervention just manage save the life of a patient who otherwise would have died? I don't know, and the patient really doesn't know either. If I knew more about medicine I'd probably have a more realistic example than that, but the fact is that some patients always wind up with outcomes from their medical treatment which are worse than they expected, and they're usually pretty ignorant about to what extent the blame lies with "crappy doctor" vs "crappy luck".
    - ericd 15y ago
      Good point - a doctor who performs only layup procedures is probably going to have a much better track record in their reviews than someone who tackles the challenging ones all the time. Normalizing reviews is extremely hard, so it's a bit worrying to think about what online reviews might do to doctors' willingness to take on challenging cases.
jrockway 15y ago
These "copyright rights" violations are becoming egregious. I recently had to sign an addendum to my apartment lease stipulating that the management company owned my "copyright" and could broadcast, on the Internet, all security footage of me in the building. What action should I take to get this clause removed? I don't care if they share the tapes with the police when they have a warrant. I do care if they end up on the Internet. I want to walk to my apartment, not have my life broadcast to strangers.
- pyre 15y ago
  You could attempt to direct a bunch of publicity towards the fact that the management company wants to broadcast the security footage on the Internet: * 'Anonymously' put up a bunch of papers around your apartment complex to direct residents' attention to those terms in the lease contract. * Notify the local media about it. * Discuss the idea that someone could use it to determine when you are/aren't home in order to rob/assault you. * If you want to fight dirty you could bring up the 'protect the children' angle and talk about online predators watching your children.
  - thebooktocome 15y ago
    > 'Anonymously' put up a bunch of papers around your apartment complex to direct residents' attention to those terms in the lease contract. Kind of hard, when they have security cameras.
    - jrockway 15y ago
      No rule against putting up fliers, though.
      - lurker19 15y ago
        Haha. I once received a threatening phone call from the son of my landlord for posting a flier (protesting an illegal mid-lease rent increase) in the lobby of the apartment building where I lived, or as he called it, "his place of business."
logjam 15y ago
My prior comment posted about another link describing doctors behaving like this remains pertinent: "I'm a doc. I have no idea of the legality of such "contracts", but it doesn't matter - such a practice is completely unethical. "Nor is it going to help a physician when a patient makes a complaint to your medical licensing board. "If you're doing your job as a physician you aren't a "provider" to "consumers" - you are hopefully a professional working in the best interests of a patient or population of patients regardless of your own personal interests - this horseshit obviously has nothing whatsoever to do with that goal."
- Goladus 15y ago
  Very pertinent. The last also makes me think, though, that the sites encouraging people to post random doctor reviews online to sell ads are the biggest culprits. I don't want my doctor focused on winning internet popularity contests. Most people are not qualified to critique for the general public much more than manner, environment, and particularly egregious mistreatment. Choosing a doctor can be difficult and it's a problem worth solving, but I don't think online review sites are the best way to do it. (That doesn't make unreasonable terms and conditions any less unreasonable, though).
  - stretchwithme 15y ago
    Random reviews are encouraged? So these sites are encouraging people to post reviews on anyone, regardless of whether they'e actually received a service from them? Or do you mean something else when you say random?
    - Goladus 15y ago
      Sorry, poor choice of words. By random I mean someone whose opinion is informed only by their impression of the care received, which was specific to them. Sites like www.ratemds.com are encouraging patients to review their doctors like they would review a restaurant or hair salon on Yelp. A collection of customer reviews of a restaurant can be very useful in two ways. First, the main point of a going to a restaurant is the customer experience, which is more or less the same for everyone. If a lot of people are leaving a restaurant happy enough to write a favorable review on yelp, that's pretty a good indicator that you may enjoy the experience as well. Furthermore, many customers are well-qualified to critique the details of the service. The food, environment, atmosphere, busy times, and various other features can be described. For something like a hotel or a hair salon, those feature descriptions will probably be more important. You can look for mismatches between what's advertised and what the customers are saying Doctors are different from restaurants in a critical way. The point of going to a doctor isn't to feel good about the experience (although hopefully you will) the point of going to a doctor is to get good, personalized, medical care. Ratemds draws focus to the incidental features which are useful but not especially critical (staff, punctuality) and on very vague evaluations of the doctors ("helpfulness" and "knowledgeable"). For the most part, the patients don't do an especially good job of rating the actual medical care. In terms of surveying patients, all I really want to know is how many are dramatically unsatisfied. Occasionally I hear major complaints about caregivers from multiple people (extremely rude, very painful, etc.). That's about the extent to which I trust the average patient to inform my decision about what doctor is right for me, although I will admit standard Dental care (cleanings, fillings) is more reviewable than internal medicine.
latj 15y ago
Well, I didnt sign any contract with this guy. I guess I'll head over to yelp now. :> I cant speak for his abilities as a dentist but having to sign something like this is good enough reason to find a different dentist.
- derwiki 15y ago
  Yelp's ToS forbids writing a review based on someone else's experience -- to allow that would enable and encourage an echo chamber effect of one person's bad experience. There's a lot of mis-information floating around about what would cause a Yelp review to disappear, but a ToS violation like that is a perfectly valid reason. (disclaimer: I used to work at Yelp)
  - kenjackson 15y ago
    Just call the dentist and ask or have the form faxed. Then you have first hand experience.
    - andrewpi 15y ago
      The article mentioned that the patient wasn't allowed to take the form out of the office.
  - latj 15y ago
    I emailed his office directly to ask about the policy yesterday. I'm making my own experience. yay!
michaelpinto 15y ago
The funny thing is that this will lead to many more anonymous reviews — which will be much more nasty than folks who sign their actual name to a comment. So negative reviews will always outweigh any positive feedback. What's sad is that you can take negative feedback and use it to improve your practice (if you care about those things)...
ben1040 15y ago
Here's a few examples of these forms I found from googling: http://lagunaskincenter.com/RegistrationForms.aspx http://lagunaskincenter.com/RegistrationForms.aspx I agree to the mutual privacy agreement and authorize the office to retain full copyrights to any communication or online posts related to my treatment and services. http://www.academylaser.com/user/PatientSignInForms.pdf http://www.academylaser.com/user/PatientSignInForms.pdf This doctor demands a five year gag order on all his patients! http://www.rejuvalife.md/forms/patientreg09.pdf http://www.rejuvalife.md/forms/patientreg09.pdf This doctor seems to imply he would try to find loopholes in HIPAA to use your records for marketing if not for you agreeing to keep quiet on Yelp.
- colinprince 15y ago
  So the question becomes: Are all Dr. Y's reviews positive because Dr. Y is a great doctor, or because Dr. Y removed the negative reviews? With ownership of the commentary comes the power to remove it.
  - Natsu 15y ago
    There's a simple algorithm for that: don't trust "perfect" people or companies. There are two ways to appear perfect: suppress all bad information and actually be perfect. One of these is much easier, and therefore a lot more likely, than the other.
- chopsueyar 15y ago
  With regard to http://lagunaskincenter.com/RegistrationForms.aspx.. http://lagunaskincenter.com/RegistrationForms.aspx... Since the office owns the full copyright to any communications posted online by the patient, if the patient were to post libelous content, would the doctor then sue his office for libel?
TomOfTTB 15y ago
People seem to be missing the most cogent point here... "The agreement is based on a template supplied by an organization called Medical Justice, and similar agreements have been popping up in doctors' offices across the country. As we dug into the story, we began to wonder if Medical Justice was taking advantage of medical professionals' lack of sophistication about the law. Doctors and dentists are understandably worried about damage to their reputations from negative reviews, and medical privacy laws do make it tricky for them to respond when their work is unfairly maligned. Although Dr. Cirka declined repeated requests for an interview, his emailed statements (and the statements of his staff) suggest he doesn't understand the terms of the agreement he asks his patients to sign." Doctors aren't lawyers. Most just want to stay in business and do their job without getting sued. That's where organizations like Medical Justice come in. Attacking the individual Doctors on an issue like this does no good. Because they weren't the people who thought up the chain of logic that led to the creation of this form. So they can't argue the pros and cons of its existence. Meaning they might agree with every counter point you present but still stick with the agreement because they are "trusting experts" If Ars or anyone else wants to really make a difference in this arena they need to engage those "experts" and take the accusations to that organization (they clearly tried to do this, my issue is with their attack on the doctor) The problem with the author calling-out an individual doctor is it makes a case for the agreement. By singling out one doctor and attacking him for an industry practice it says "patients can be irrational online" which will make doctors fear the online world more (and hence give more credence to organizations that claim the best way to deal with patients is to censor them)
- dillona 15y ago
  At the same time, I think it is fair to say that anyone (doctor or otherwise) should attempt to understand any legal agreement they enter into. If doctors are asking patients to enter into a contract with them, they should have a good understanding of exactly what it says.
- jemfinch 15y ago
  No, doctors aren't lawyers. But they are humans, and thus they're responsible for their own actions, even if they've been misled by so-called experts. They bear responsibility for refusing medical treatment to clients who refuse to sign ridiculous "mutual privacy agreements". I reasonably expect that highly educated doctors should have enough skepticism and worldliness to recognize that there exist people who will try to take advantage of them, much like "Medical Justice" has done here. Demanding that patients sign away their rights to public expression of their opinions is prima facie ridiculous and should trigger the bullshit meter of any doctor I'd consider trusting my treatment to. If doctors' bullshit meters don't trigger there, I shudder to think what pharmaceutical companies and free lunches could sneak by them.
gfunk911 15y ago
Regarding the argument that doctors aren't lawyers, and they were just listening to so called experts: There was a popular article last week discussing how doctors were ignoring evidence and logic because so-called experts in their fields hadn't instructed them what to do yet. They refused to think for themselves. The idea that a doctor only used this form because an expert told them to, and didn't think about it for even a minute, does not fill me with confidence. Why would this thought process be confined to one area? Link: http://www.cancer-healing.com/blaylock_brother.php http://www.cancer-healing.com/blaylock_brother.php
- Alex3917 15y ago
  "Why would this thought process be confined to one area?" It's obviously not, you can find any number of books on Amazon about how the standard of care in virtually every area of medicine is horrifically awful. The one thing these books have in common is that virtually none of them are selling more than 10,000 copies, and of course number of physicians that actually read and take the time to read these books and understand them is only a small fraction of that. The vast majority of doctors can't even name a single recent finding in their own field, let alone the most important ones.
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  - phren0logy 15y ago
    >Alex3917: The vast majority of doctors can't even name a single recent finding in their own field, let alone the most important ones. I guess what you are saying is that it's important to support one's opinion with peer-reviewed research, rather than being overly reliant on personal experience. A noble goal. I'm assuming that because this is important to you, you have done the same. Could you please cite your sources for the above statement? Or is this an extremely clever way of proving the point that perhaps physicians really are justified in worrying about unfounded negative opinions on the internet?
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dfranke 15y ago
As a consumer, the way deal with this stuff is to cross out the objectionable provisions, sign, and hand it back without a word. Walk out if they put up a fuss, but they usually won't.
- Vivtek 15y ago
  This sounds like a pretty good tactic.
- nhangen 15y ago
  Just make sure to initial next to those changes.
- chopsueyar 15y ago
  It works with rental car agreements, too!
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Vivtek 15y ago
The real question is how much each doctor or dentist pays Medical Justice for the privilege of being lied to.
yaks_hairbrush 15y ago
I wonder if (non-tenured) college professors will undertake a similar endeavor, given the visibility of ratemyprofessor.com
SoftwareMaven 15y ago
The internets don't provide much information for doctors to go off of. Lots of people who want to sell them mutual privacy agreements, lawyers that say "you should do it!", but nothing with any real facts about them. Maybe EFF could do some SEO efforts to get on google's front page talking about what they really mean to balance everybody trying to sell them.
nathanwdavis 15y ago
Angie's List (I work for AL) recently did an informational video to inform customers on the topic. http://magazine.angieslist.com/videos/is-your-doctor-asking-you-to-sign-away-your-free-s.aspx http://magazine.angieslist.com/videos/is-your-doctor-asking-... Hopefully more people will become educated on the matter and refuse to be a patient of such physicians and dentists.
- ChattyKathy 15y ago
  MedicalJustice is an EXTREMELY slimy organization. Not only do they sell these damn contracts but they also take "extra legal" measures against doctors who testify on behalf of a patient in a medical malpractice trial. (http://blog.medicaljustice.com/?p=2048 http://blog.medicaljustice.com/?p=2048) AND they post positive reviews for doctors across the US. (http://www.ratemds.com/social/?q=node/49926 http://www.ratemds.com/social/?q=node/49926) At least four of the doctor who have received reviews from them are themselves members of Medical Justice. Its like they're saying, "Don't rate your doctors, let us do it for you!"
SkimThat 15y ago
TL;DR - An Ars Technica reporter was about to sign an agreement with a new dentist when he noticed that the contract forbade posting any reviews of the dentist online. An organization called Medical Justice is supplying boilerplate agreements to doctors and dentists to put in contracts with new patients like the one previously mentioned in order to help control negative reviews. Doctors, however, may not fully understand what those agreements actually entail. They’re mostly focused on fraudulent negative reviews by non-patients, which privacy laws make difficult to eradicate, but the agreements could have a chilling effect on legitimate patient reviews. Doctors, however can respond by making general comments about their practices, accepting that there will be a few negative reviews, and dealing with complaints made by patients.
robdd1 15y ago
There should be an open way for patients to give public feedback. HIPAA makes it impossible for a Doctor to defend herself from a BS review. For EXAMPLE: Patient X: This Doctor is terrible, I had a broken leg and he told me to get the hell out of the hospital and walk it off. Doctor Y: This Patient has been to the ER 30 times over the past 2 months, every time he asks for narcotics for broken bones that NEVER show up on X-rays. Patient X's Lawyer: You are now being sued for a HIPAA violation.
learc83 15y ago
What is the doctor giving you in return? From my understanding it's not an valid contract unless both sides get some kind of consideration (such as money or a discount for service).
Egregore 15y ago
The article says that the agreement will not work in court, but even if it will, why can't somebody (your relative) who know the situation and have not signed the agreement post a bad review?
rorrr 15y ago
Here are the places where you can review this particular dentist: http://www.yelp.com/biz/ken-cirka-dmd-philadelphia-2 http://www.yelp.com/biz/ken-cirka-dmd-philadelphia-2 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Ken-Cirka-DMD/142418484400?sk=app_6261817190 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Ken-Cirka-DMD/142418484400?... http://philadelphia.doctoroogle.com/reviews/viewdentist.cfm/pageID/8/dentistID/76856/philadelphia_dentist/dr_ken_cirka http://philadelphia.doctoroogle.com/reviews/viewdentist.cfm/... http://www.bbb.org/washington-dc-eastern-pa/business-reviews/dentistry-cosmetic/dr-ken-cirka-dmd-in-philadelphia-pa-205551181/ http://www.bbb.org/washington-dc-eastern-pa/business-reviews...
callmeed 15y ago
The "product" is $625/year or included with some larger membership. https://www.medicaljustice.com/web-defamation-purch1.aspx https://www.medicaljustice.com/web-defamation-purch1.aspx The fake patient quote on the page is so bad it's almost funny ...
chalst 15y ago
AMS News wrote about this in 2008: http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/06/09/bica0609.htm http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/06/09/bica0609.htm criticising an earlier invocation of Medical Justice's "vaccine against libel".

187 points by chanks 15y ago

bugsy 15y ago

It seems the obvious thing to do would be to have a site that collects the names and addresses of the doctors and dentists who are so incompetent that they fear reviews.

cosgroveb 15y ago
I'm not a Doctor but I seem to think if I were at least competent with a good bedside manner that the best play would be to encourage patient reviews. You are always going to get a few bad apples, but people appreciate transparency and I bet that would translate to more/better reviews. I could be completely wrong though. You would probably want to A/B test it ;)
- hugh3 15y ago
  It's difficult to know. It only takes one complete horror story to drive a lot of patients away, and the person telling the horror story may not necessarily know what he's talking about. At least when I read hotel reviews on tripadvisor I know enough to tell when the one-star reviews are based on real complaints ("Cockroaches all over the room") or excessively picky customers ("Desk clerk rolled his eyes the third time I requested to be shifted to a room with a better view"). But if I read "Doctor Smith botched my surgery, and I lost both my legs" I'm at a loss. Did Doctor Smith really botch the surgery? Or did Doctor Smith's heroic and brilliant surgical intervention just manage save the life of a patient who otherwise would have died? I don't know, and the patient really doesn't know either. If I knew more about medicine I'd probably have a more realistic example than that, but the fact is that some patients always wind up with outcomes from their medical treatment which are worse than they expected, and they're usually pretty ignorant about to what extent the blame lies with "crappy doctor" vs "crappy luck".
  - ericd 15y ago
    Good point - a doctor who performs only layup procedures is probably going to have a much better track record in their reviews than someone who tackles the challenging ones all the time. Normalizing reviews is extremely hard, so it's a bit worrying to think about what online reviews might do to doctors' willingness to take on challenging cases.

jrockway 15y ago

These "copyright rights" violations are becoming egregious. I recently had to sign an addendum to my apartment lease stipulating that the management company owned my "copyright" and could broadcast, on the Internet, all security footage of me in the building. What action should I take to get this clause removed? I don't care if they share the tapes with the police when they have a warrant. I do care if they end up on the Internet. I want to walk to my apartment, not have my life broadcast to strangers.

pyre 15y ago
You could attempt to direct a bunch of publicity towards the fact that the management company wants to broadcast the security footage on the Internet: * 'Anonymously' put up a bunch of papers around your apartment complex to direct residents' attention to those terms in the lease contract. * Notify the local media about it. * Discuss the idea that someone could use it to determine when you are/aren't home in order to rob/assault you. * If you want to fight dirty you could bring up the 'protect the children' angle and talk about online predators watching your children.
- thebooktocome 15y ago
  > 'Anonymously' put up a bunch of papers around your apartment complex to direct residents' attention to those terms in the lease contract. Kind of hard, when they have security cameras.
  - jrockway 15y ago
    No rule against putting up fliers, though.
    - lurker19 15y ago
      Haha. I once received a threatening phone call from the son of my landlord for posting a flier (protesting an illegal mid-lease rent increase) in the lobby of the apartment building where I lived, or as he called it, "his place of business."

logjam 15y ago

My prior comment posted about another link describing doctors behaving like this remains pertinent: "I'm a doc. I have no idea of the legality of such "contracts", but it doesn't matter - such a practice is completely unethical. "Nor is it going to help a physician when a patient makes a complaint to your medical licensing board. "If you're doing your job as a physician you aren't a "provider" to "consumers" - you are hopefully a professional working in the best interests of a patient or population of patients regardless of your own personal interests - this horseshit obviously has nothing whatsoever to do with that goal."

Goladus 15y ago
Very pertinent. The last also makes me think, though, that the sites encouraging people to post random doctor reviews online to sell ads are the biggest culprits. I don't want my doctor focused on winning internet popularity contests. Most people are not qualified to critique for the general public much more than manner, environment, and particularly egregious mistreatment. Choosing a doctor can be difficult and it's a problem worth solving, but I don't think online review sites are the best way to do it. (That doesn't make unreasonable terms and conditions any less unreasonable, though).
- stretchwithme 15y ago
  Random reviews are encouraged? So these sites are encouraging people to post reviews on anyone, regardless of whether they'e actually received a service from them? Or do you mean something else when you say random?
  - Goladus 15y ago
    Sorry, poor choice of words. By random I mean someone whose opinion is informed only by their impression of the care received, which was specific to them. Sites like www.ratemds.com are encouraging patients to review their doctors like they would review a restaurant or hair salon on Yelp. A collection of customer reviews of a restaurant can be very useful in two ways. First, the main point of a going to a restaurant is the customer experience, which is more or less the same for everyone. If a lot of people are leaving a restaurant happy enough to write a favorable review on yelp, that's pretty a good indicator that you may enjoy the experience as well. Furthermore, many customers are well-qualified to critique the details of the service. The food, environment, atmosphere, busy times, and various other features can be described. For something like a hotel or a hair salon, those feature descriptions will probably be more important. You can look for mismatches between what's advertised and what the customers are saying Doctors are different from restaurants in a critical way. The point of going to a doctor isn't to feel good about the experience (although hopefully you will) the point of going to a doctor is to get good, personalized, medical care. Ratemds draws focus to the incidental features which are useful but not especially critical (staff, punctuality) and on very vague evaluations of the doctors ("helpfulness" and "knowledgeable"). For the most part, the patients don't do an especially good job of rating the actual medical care. In terms of surveying patients, all I really want to know is how many are dramatically unsatisfied. Occasionally I hear major complaints about caregivers from multiple people (extremely rude, very painful, etc.). That's about the extent to which I trust the average patient to inform my decision about what doctor is right for me, although I will admit standard Dental care (cleanings, fillings) is more reviewable than internal medicine.

latj 15y ago

Well, I didnt sign any contract with this guy. I guess I'll head over to yelp now. :> I cant speak for his abilities as a dentist but having to sign something like this is good enough reason to find a different dentist.

derwiki 15y ago
Yelp's ToS forbids writing a review based on someone else's experience -- to allow that would enable and encourage an echo chamber effect of one person's bad experience. There's a lot of mis-information floating around about what would cause a Yelp review to disappear, but a ToS violation like that is a perfectly valid reason. (disclaimer: I used to work at Yelp)
- kenjackson 15y ago
  Just call the dentist and ask or have the form faxed. Then you have first hand experience.
  - andrewpi 15y ago
    The article mentioned that the patient wasn't allowed to take the form out of the office.
- latj 15y ago
  I emailed his office directly to ask about the policy yesterday. I'm making my own experience. yay!

michaelpinto 15y ago

The funny thing is that this will lead to many more anonymous reviews — which will be much more nasty than folks who sign their actual name to a comment. So negative reviews will always outweigh any positive feedback. What's sad is that you can take negative feedback and use it to improve your practice (if you care about those things)...

ben1040 15y ago

Here's a few examples of these forms I found from googling: http://lagunaskincenter.com/RegistrationForms.aspx http://lagunaskincenter.com/RegistrationForms.aspx I agree to the mutual privacy agreement and authorize the office to retain full copyrights to any communication or online posts related to my treatment and services. http://www.academylaser.com/user/PatientSignInForms.pdf http://www.academylaser.com/user/PatientSignInForms.pdf This doctor demands a five year gag order on all his patients! http://www.rejuvalife.md/forms/patientreg09.pdf http://www.rejuvalife.md/forms/patientreg09.pdf This doctor seems to imply he would try to find loopholes in HIPAA to use your records for marketing if not for you agreeing to keep quiet on Yelp.

colinprince 15y ago
So the question becomes: Are all Dr. Y's reviews positive because Dr. Y is a great doctor, or because Dr. Y removed the negative reviews? With ownership of the commentary comes the power to remove it.
- Natsu 15y ago
  There's a simple algorithm for that: don't trust "perfect" people or companies. There are two ways to appear perfect: suppress all bad information and actually be perfect. One of these is much easier, and therefore a lot more likely, than the other.
chopsueyar 15y ago
With regard to http://lagunaskincenter.com/RegistrationForms.aspx.. http://lagunaskincenter.com/RegistrationForms.aspx... Since the office owns the full copyright to any communications posted online by the patient, if the patient were to post libelous content, would the doctor then sue his office for libel?

TomOfTTB 15y ago

People seem to be missing the most cogent point here... "The agreement is based on a template supplied by an organization called Medical Justice, and similar agreements have been popping up in doctors' offices across the country. As we dug into the story, we began to wonder if Medical Justice was taking advantage of medical professionals' lack of sophistication about the law. Doctors and dentists are understandably worried about damage to their reputations from negative reviews, and medical privacy laws do make it tricky for them to respond when their work is unfairly maligned. Although Dr. Cirka declined repeated requests for an interview, his emailed statements (and the statements of his staff) suggest he doesn't understand the terms of the agreement he asks his patients to sign." Doctors aren't lawyers. Most just want to stay in business and do their job without getting sued. That's where organizations like Medical Justice come in. Attacking the individual Doctors on an issue like this does no good. Because they weren't the people who thought up the chain of logic that led to the creation of this form. So they can't argue the pros and cons of its existence. Meaning they might agree with every counter point you present but still stick with the agreement because they are "trusting experts" If Ars or anyone else wants to really make a difference in this arena they need to engage those "experts" and take the accusations to that organization (they clearly tried to do this, my issue is with their attack on the doctor) The problem with the author calling-out an individual doctor is it makes a case for the agreement. By singling out one doctor and attacking him for an industry practice it says "patients can be irrational online" which will make doctors fear the online world more (and hence give more credence to organizations that claim the best way to deal with patients is to censor them)

dillona 15y ago
At the same time, I think it is fair to say that anyone (doctor or otherwise) should attempt to understand any legal agreement they enter into. If doctors are asking patients to enter into a contract with them, they should have a good understanding of exactly what it says.
jemfinch 15y ago
No, doctors aren't lawyers. But they are humans, and thus they're responsible for their own actions, even if they've been misled by so-called experts. They bear responsibility for refusing medical treatment to clients who refuse to sign ridiculous "mutual privacy agreements". I reasonably expect that highly educated doctors should have enough skepticism and worldliness to recognize that there exist people who will try to take advantage of them, much like "Medical Justice" has done here. Demanding that patients sign away their rights to public expression of their opinions is prima facie ridiculous and should trigger the bullshit meter of any doctor I'd consider trusting my treatment to. If doctors' bullshit meters don't trigger there, I shudder to think what pharmaceutical companies and free lunches could sneak by them.

gfunk911 15y ago

Regarding the argument that doctors aren't lawyers, and they were just listening to so called experts: There was a popular article last week discussing how doctors were ignoring evidence and logic because so-called experts in their fields hadn't instructed them what to do yet. They refused to think for themselves. The idea that a doctor only used this form because an expert told them to, and didn't think about it for even a minute, does not fill me with confidence. Why would this thought process be confined to one area? Link: http://www.cancer-healing.com/blaylock_brother.php http://www.cancer-healing.com/blaylock_brother.php

Alex3917 15y ago
"Why would this thought process be confined to one area?" It's obviously not, you can find any number of books on Amazon about how the standard of care in virtually every area of medicine is horrifically awful. The one thing these books have in common is that virtually none of them are selling more than 10,000 copies, and of course number of physicians that actually read and take the time to read these books and understand them is only a small fraction of that. The vast majority of doctors can't even name a single recent finding in their own field, let alone the most important ones.
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- phren0logy 15y ago
  >Alex3917: The vast majority of doctors can't even name a single recent finding in their own field, let alone the most important ones. I guess what you are saying is that it's important to support one's opinion with peer-reviewed research, rather than being overly reliant on personal experience. A noble goal. I'm assuming that because this is important to you, you have done the same. Could you please cite your sources for the above statement? Or is this an extremely clever way of proving the point that perhaps physicians really are justified in worrying about unfounded negative opinions on the internet?

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dfranke 15y ago

As a consumer, the way deal with this stuff is to cross out the objectionable provisions, sign, and hand it back without a word. Walk out if they put up a fuss, but they usually won't.

Vivtek 15y ago
This sounds like a pretty good tactic.
nhangen 15y ago
Just make sure to initial next to those changes.
chopsueyar 15y ago
It works with rental car agreements, too!

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Vivtek 15y ago

The real question is how much each doctor or dentist pays Medical Justice for the privilege of being lied to.

yaks_hairbrush 15y ago

I wonder if (non-tenured) college professors will undertake a similar endeavor, given the visibility of ratemyprofessor.com

SoftwareMaven 15y ago

The internets don't provide much information for doctors to go off of. Lots of people who want to sell them mutual privacy agreements, lawyers that say "you should do it!", but nothing with any real facts about them. Maybe EFF could do some SEO efforts to get on google's front page talking about what they really mean to balance everybody trying to sell them.

nathanwdavis 15y ago

Angie's List (I work for AL) recently did an informational video to inform customers on the topic. http://magazine.angieslist.com/videos/is-your-doctor-asking-you-to-sign-away-your-free-s.aspx http://magazine.angieslist.com/videos/is-your-doctor-asking-... Hopefully more people will become educated on the matter and refuse to be a patient of such physicians and dentists.

ChattyKathy 15y ago
MedicalJustice is an EXTREMELY slimy organization. Not only do they sell these damn contracts but they also take "extra legal" measures against doctors who testify on behalf of a patient in a medical malpractice trial. (http://blog.medicaljustice.com/?p=2048 http://blog.medicaljustice.com/?p=2048) AND they post positive reviews for doctors across the US. (http://www.ratemds.com/social/?q=node/49926 http://www.ratemds.com/social/?q=node/49926) At least four of the doctor who have received reviews from them are themselves members of Medical Justice. Its like they're saying, "Don't rate your doctors, let us do it for you!"

SkimThat 15y ago

TL;DR - An Ars Technica reporter was about to sign an agreement with a new dentist when he noticed that the contract forbade posting any reviews of the dentist online. An organization called Medical Justice is supplying boilerplate agreements to doctors and dentists to put in contracts with new patients like the one previously mentioned in order to help control negative reviews. Doctors, however, may not fully understand what those agreements actually entail. They’re mostly focused on fraudulent negative reviews by non-patients, which privacy laws make difficult to eradicate, but the agreements could have a chilling effect on legitimate patient reviews. Doctors, however can respond by making general comments about their practices, accepting that there will be a few negative reviews, and dealing with complaints made by patients.

robdd1 15y ago

There should be an open way for patients to give public feedback. HIPAA makes it impossible for a Doctor to defend herself from a BS review. For EXAMPLE: Patient X: This Doctor is terrible, I had a broken leg and he told me to get the hell out of the hospital and walk it off. Doctor Y: This Patient has been to the ER 30 times over the past 2 months, every time he asks for narcotics for broken bones that NEVER show up on X-rays. Patient X's Lawyer: You are now being sued for a HIPAA violation.

learc83 15y ago

What is the doctor giving you in return? From my understanding it's not an valid contract unless both sides get some kind of consideration (such as money or a discount for service).

Egregore 15y ago

The article says that the agreement will not work in court, but even if it will, why can't somebody (your relative) who know the situation and have not signed the agreement post a bad review?

rorrr 15y ago

Here are the places where you can review this particular dentist: http://www.yelp.com/biz/ken-cirka-dmd-philadelphia-2 http://www.yelp.com/biz/ken-cirka-dmd-philadelphia-2 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Ken-Cirka-DMD/142418484400?sk=app_6261817190 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Ken-Cirka-DMD/142418484400?... http://philadelphia.doctoroogle.com/reviews/viewdentist.cfm/pageID/8/dentistID/76856/philadelphia_dentist/dr_ken_cirka http://philadelphia.doctoroogle.com/reviews/viewdentist.cfm/... http://www.bbb.org/washington-dc-eastern-pa/business-reviews/dentistry-cosmetic/dr-ken-cirka-dmd-in-philadelphia-pa-205551181/ http://www.bbb.org/washington-dc-eastern-pa/business-reviews...

callmeed 15y ago

The "product" is $625/year or included with some larger membership. https://www.medicaljustice.com/web-defamation-purch1.aspx https://www.medicaljustice.com/web-defamation-purch1.aspx The fake patient quote on the page is so bad it's almost funny ...

chalst 15y ago

AMS News wrote about this in 2008: http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/06/09/bica0609.htm http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/06/09/bica0609.htm criticising an earlier invocation of Medical Justice's "vaccine against libel".