Doctors fighting Internet reviews

March 4, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

CHICAGO (AP) — Some doctors have started fighting back against ugly Internet reviews by asking patients to abide by what are effectively gag orders that bar them from posting negative comments online.

Physicians are taking action as online ratings services such as Zagat’s and Angie’s List grow in popularity and expand their reviews beyond restaurants and plumbers to include medical care.

“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.

Here’s a real, anonymous comment about a doctor from the Web site RateMDs.com:

“Very unhelpful, arrogant, did not listen and cut me off, seemed much too happy to have power (and abuse it!) over suffering people.”

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 doctors from fighting back.

His company, Medical Justice, is based in Greensboro, N.C. For a fee, it provides doctors with a standardized waiver agreement. Patients who sign agree not to post online comments about the doctor, “his expertise and/or treatment.”

Doctors are notified when a negative rating appears on a Web site, and, if the author’s name is known, physicians can use the signed waivers to get the sites to remove offending opinion.

RateMd’s postings are anonymous, and the site’s operators say they do not know their users’ identities. The operators also won’t remove negative comments.

Angie’s List’s operators know the identities of users and warn them when they register that the site will share names with doctors if asked.

Lenore Janecek, who formed a Chicago-based patient-advocacy group after being wrongly diagnosed with cancer, said she opposes the waivers.

“Everyone has the right to speak up,” she said.

Though she’s never posted comments about her doctors, she said the sites are one of the few resources patients have to evaluate physicians.