Disciplined doc gets top rank in Google
In SF Weekly, Ashley Harrell investigated the disconnect between a local plastic surgeon’s record of “gross negligence” which left one patient in a fatal coma and several others with burns, and the legions of glowing reviews of her practice posted all over the internet.
The reviews, she found, were connected to the astroturfing efforts of a PR agency the doctor had hired. The group also earned the doctor a top spot in Google’s PageRank algorithm at the same time that she was serving a three-year probation set by the state medical board.
Harrell’s story, Doctoring the Web, examines ways that some doctors are trying to game online ratings systems, as well as the current weakness of enforcement, both federal and local, in the arena.
Doctors rebel against online patient reviews
Associated Press Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner reports that almost 2,000 doctors have signed up for a service providing waivers barring patients who sign them from posting on online doctor-rating sites like Angie’s List and RateMDs.com.
North Carolina neurosurgeon Dr. Jeffrey Segal’s firm, Medical Justice, gives paying doctors waiver forms to give patients and alerts them when a review appears online. Medical Justice allows doctors to use signed waiver forms to then have the offending comments removed, which he said had been done in “several instances.”
Some sites “are little more than tabloid journalism without much interest in constructively improving practices,” and their sniping comments can unfairly ruin a doctor’s reputation, Segal said.
Segal said such postings say nothing about what should really matter to patients — a doctor’s medical skills — and privacy laws and medical ethics prevent leave doctors powerless to do anything it.
According to Tanner, the co-founder of RateMDs.com said he refuses to take comments down when confronted with a signed waiver. Northwestern University Internet law specialist and attorney Jim Speta questioned the effectiveness of such waivers, Tanner said.
“Courts might say the balance of power between doctors and patients is very uneven” and that patients should be able to give feedback on their doctors’ performance, Speta said.
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