Medical Gag Orders

A New York dentist who required patients to sign a contract NOT to disparage her online has fined a patient thousands of dollars for doing just that.  Now he is suing her.  The patient also wants the contract, which which gags patient reviews, to be deemed unethical, invalid and illegal.   This was all helped out by the infamous advocacy group Public Citizen.  Interestingly, the company (Medical Justice) that advised the dentist to have this type of contract is no longer doing so.  The dentist, according to the patient, overcharged him by about $4,000 for his care, submitted his records to the wrong insurance company and then refused to provide copies of the records so he could submit them correctly himself.  He then posted complaints on medical sites that included Yelp and DoctorBase which said “Avoid at all cost! Scamming their customers!” and “Honestly, how do you live with yourself? Just try being a decent human being.”  This was a bad situation all the way around.  I really wish there was some rules about disparaging doctors online but these contracts are not going to fly.  That being said, it sure seems that the dentist could have done a better job in dealing with this patient’s concerns.  If she had placed the same energy into fixing her customer service as she did into suing him then no one would have ever heard of this story.