Doctors seeking to gag their patients

[thatcrazycajun]

Doctors are asking patients to sign waivers agreeing not to post comments about their services to online rating sites such as Angie's List and Kudzu.com, on pain of refusal of treatment. See story here. I find this reprehensible, and any doctor who made this request of me would be dumped so fast her head would spin like Linda Blair's in The Exorcist. What say you?

Comments

[nimitzbrood.livejournal.com]

I would think this runs afoul of the laws against "refusal to treat" such as hospitals have but I may be wrong.

Regardless I too would drop the doctor like a hot rock if he/she tried this with me. If a doctor sucks people get sick, get hurt, or die.

I reserve the right to tell people that a particular doctor sucks.

[cellio]

I would not willingly deal with such a doctor (or any other service provider). He has the right to make that a condition of doing business, and I have the right to say "screw that" and walk away.

I would think very poorly of anyone who asks customers to do that. Comments can be positive or negative, so if they're cutting off the positive ones it's because they know which way to bet. I'll take that hint, thanks.

[terriwells.livejournal.com]

I'd also drop any doctor that did that. As one of the people quoted in the article pointed out, it forces a choice between medical treatment and First Amendment rights; how disgusting can you get?

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

It'd be time to (a) find another physician and (b) report exactly that request to as many doctor-rating sites as I could.

[Edited for spelling/grammar and to not come off as less educated than my second-grader]

[dandelion-diva.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly this.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

What say I? to any quack that asked, Yuck Foo! And I'm posting this fact to the Known Fracking Universe.

I always actually *read* privacy forms before signing them, and I have been known to cause quite a stir by lining out and initialing the parts where they can tell FedGov what the hell I'm in for when FedGov isn't paying....

Freedom of information is *life*. Mess with it where I'm concerned, and you're liable to be looking down the barrel of something big, short and ugly.

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

Pretty amazing.
But I am not surprised.
See my current post re responsibility.
Oh, and I'd put them on consumer sites even if they weren't my doctor at that point.

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

I agree. And, if I ran a rating site, I would refuse to honor a request for takedown. At best, the doctor has a contract dispute with patient.

[jannyblue.livejournal.com]

I'd still go if I liked the standard of care, because I never use those rating sites anyway. (Especially if they gave a discount for promising not to use them...)

I'd just tell it like it is on my LJ if there's a problem.

I also know what information you need to sue someone for malpractice.

Shitty bedside manner? Meh. Call me a fatass all you want, but I'm there to get my cold wiped out. If the treatment worked, I don't care.

But, improper care? Forget those 'rating' sites. I'd sue.