Docs ask patients to sign gag orders barring online reviews; some sites don't cooperate

[Louis-Emmanuel]

By LINDSEY TANNER | AP Medical Writer
8:00 AM CST, March 4, 2009


CHICAGO (AP) — The anonymous comment on the Web site RateMDs.com was unsparing: "Very unhelpful, arrogant," it said of a doctor. "Did not listen and cut me off, seemed much too happy to have power (and abuse it!) over suffering people."

Such reviews are becoming more common as consumer ratings services like Zagat's and Angie's List expand beyond restaurants and plumbers to medical care, and some doctors are fighting back.

They're asking patients to agree to what amounts to a gag order that bars them from posting negative comments online.

"Consumers and patients are hungry for good information" about doctors, but Internet reviews provide just the opposite, contends Dr. Jeffrey Segal, a North Carolina neurosurgeon who has made a business of helping doctors monitor and prevent online criticism.

More: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-med-gagging-patients,0,46473.story?track=rss

[alstephenson]

Yeah, what the hell do patients know???

Jerks. What are they afraid of?

[msongs]

5. so it's ok for people on anonymous sites to say "alstephenson is a child molestor"? cool nt

[alstephenson]

7. Huh?

Like YOU just did, you mean? Not cool nt

What are "anonymous sites"? I think you mean anonymous posters, but whatever...nt

[kestrel91316]

6. Oh, a completely unfounded slander campaign by some psychotic

with an ax to grind (and all her little friends). Like happened to me.

Anybody can tell any sort of lies they want to on those sites, and unless we spend all our time monitering them, how are we even to know we are being slandered? Or libeled. Or whatever it is.....

I hope people who use these sites realize that with the power of the internet all it takes is one pissed off crackpot to ruin someone's career.

[noiretextatique]

1. i rated my ex-doctor on several sites because

she was such a jackass. she gave me a cancer diagnosis over the phone, even though there are signs all over her office that state you have to make an appointment to get test results.

but she blurted out "invasive ductal carcinoma" over the phone just as i was about to get in my car and go to work. i had to sit in my car and call my best friends and cry for an hour before i could drive :grr: people need to know what an incompetent, insensitive jerk she is.

i am good now...over one year cancer-free.

[Louis-Emmanuel]

3. I gave my doctor a bad rating too

She sent my blood-work to a lab that did not accept my health insurance, even though she knew I had that insurance (Healthnet). Now I'm fighting not to pay the lab the amount in question.

The doctor also had no clue as to what was wrong with me until after she spoke to another senior doctor.

[noiretextatique]

4. i'm waiting for my bill

there is a sign in my doctor's office that says my insurance will only pay for a certain lab. all my doctors keep sending me to the lab the sign says my insurance won't cover :shrug: oh well..

[acmavm]

8. I had a doctor, a OB-GYN, who called me at work and told me my

son would be born with the old swollen head and retarded, missing half his organs and appendages, of indeterminate sex, and slated to die while a child because he has Kleinfelter's Syndrome:

<snip>

Klinefelter's syndrome, 47,XXY or XXY syndrome is a condition caused by a chromosome aneuploidy. Affected individuals have at least two X chromosomes and at least one Y chromosome.<1> Klinefelter's syndrome is the most common sex chromosome disorder.<2>:549

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klinefelter's_syndrome
<snip>

I did really well for about 45 minutes. (I worked for an architectural firm.) Clear up until the first client walked in for a meeting. He asked me how I was and that was all she wrote, I just burst out crying. Talk about turning on the water works. You should have seen the look on this guy's face.

Anyway, Kleinfelter's effects 1 in every 200 males. Anyway, he told me I have better be making some arrangements to terminate the pregnancy.

So, the guys in the office took me back to a closet and set me down in there until someone (my freaking ex) came to pick me up.

I never did see that client again.

edit: Forgot to say, there wasn't anything wrong with my son when he was born. He was so beautiful strangers would stop me and tell me what a doll he was.

Moral of the story: ALWAYS get a second opinion.

[noiretextatique]

9. i'm glad your son is healthy

and beautiful. :argh: no one should be given test results over the phone.
i almost consented to an experimental radiation procedure, but i got a second opinion. i ranted and raved about it here, and reporter from the NY Times contacted me.

here's a part of my story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/27/health/policy/27device.html?_r=2&oref=slogin

[acmavm]

10. Wow! But you know, I've been thinking about this for a long time. Doctor's

anymore all want to go for the newest 'best' cure. I don't mean that it's bad all the time because I personally know that it isn't. But what strikes me as strange is that EVERYTHING anymore is new and improved. And treatable with a magic drug.

I'm glad everything worked out for you. You were smart go get a second opinion.

I hope you continue to be well for many many years.

[noiretextatique]

12. unfortunately, the profit motive is high

for some of the new and improved experimential treatments. mammosite, the radiation procedure i almost did, is quick, easy money for surgeons. and insurance companies are paying for these procedures, oddly enough :7 profit motive + health care + deregulation = a dangerous combination, especially for patiets.
:toast: to my continued good health...and yours.

[bemildred]

2. Sign it, then ignore it. How are they going to prove it was you? nt

[bertman]

11. Surgeons recommend surgery. Period. It's how they make their very good livings.

But, when one goes to a doctor, even a surgeon, for a medical opinion, one expects that the doctor/surgeon would be honest/honorable/ethical enough to explain that there are other options.

Three surgeons. Three surgery recommendations. I had been doing a lot of googling about my condition and just by a stroke of luck my wife was going to an osteopath for a treatment, so I asked her to inquire of the osteopath if he might be able to help me. Turns out that he had some ideas of alternative treatments that he had used before and thought might work. I looked them up AGAIN because I had read about them before. Decided to give the prolotherapy a try. Now, well over a year and a half later, with no surgery, I am doing just fine.

Doctors are just people who are very smart and able to make it through med school. Some are ethical and honorable and others are just businessmen with medical degrees.

I like the idea that people can rate their doctor's performance on a public forum.

By the way, I just had minor surgery that has really helped me with a problem that could not have been fixed another way. Excellent doctor. Excellent treatment. Excellent results.