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Dentists: Can Copyright Law Protect You from Negative Online Reviews?

May 3, 2011 By Jim Du Molin 6 Comments

dentists and copyright law Online dental reviews can be a problem for dentists when negative reviews appear, especially when they feel the review is possibly retaliatory or bogus.

A few thousand doctors have taken matters into their own hands by working with a company called Medical Justice, that created a way to use copyright law to go after negative online reviews.

For about $100.00 a month, Medical Justice protects its doctors by going to online review sites and demanding any bad reviews be removed due to “a breach of copyright.” The company instructs doctors to have their patients sign contracts that assign away the copyright in any future review the patient might be compelled to write online.

Techland Times reports that Medical Justice claims what they’re doing is not only protecting the doctors from unfair bad press, but also from bogus reviews. “Some sites say, we don’t know if you’re telling truth, and we don’t know if they’re telling the truth — it’s the Internet, so deal with it,” contends Shane Stadler of Medical Justice.

Moco News writes that by having patients assign copyright in any reviews to their doctor, Medical Justice is hoping to help doctors get around Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (an “arcane nuance of cyberlaw,” according to Medical Justice’s website), the law that protects web services from getting sued over content posted by their users.

It is being reported that Yelp has refused to honor a doctor’s take-down notice based on copyright infringement, and another online review website called RateMDs created a “Wall of Shame” to identify doctors who are using the copyright contracts.

Sound unreasonable? Do you think it’s irrational to demand dental patients sign a copyright assignment form when they visit a dentist office?

For more on this story see “Doctors Now Using Breach of Copyright to Quash Bad Online Reviews“ and “Can Doctors Use Copyright Law To Get Rid Of Negative Reviews?“

Filed Under: Legal, The Wealthy Dentist Tagged With: angie's list, Dental News, dentists, Internet dental marketing, negative online reviews, online reviews, yelp, yelp reviews

Appeals Court Says Yes to Dentist Lawsuit Against Patient for Online Review

April 26, 2011 By Jim Du Molin 13 Comments

A new ruling by the 6th District Court of Appeals in California allows a dentist’s defamation lawsuit to move forward against a former patient who posted negative review of the doctor on Yelp.

In the same ruling, the court also concluded that the popular consumer review site Yelp is protected under the anti-SLAPP law, and Yelp can recover legal fees stemming from the doctor also suing Yelp over the same negative review.

Let the legal wrangling begin . . .

As reported in the Metropolitan News-Enterprise, the courtroom drama began back in 2009, when Yvonne Wong, a pediatric dentist from Foster City, California decided to sue Tai Jing and Jia Ma, who are parents of a boy she treated. The parents, unhappy with Sr. Wong’s treatment of their son allegedly posted a negative review about the doctor on the online review website Yelp.

The parent’s biting online review of Dr. Wong centered around the use of silver filings and laughing gas on their son, but the parents also wrote that Dr. Wong never warned that their son’s filing material could contain mercury and that other patients should “avoid her like a disease!”

Yelp gets involved . . .

After denying the parent’s claim Dr. Wong sued both the parents along with Yelp for what she felt was defamation of her character. She also wanted Yelp to remove the negative review.

She ultimately ended up withdrawing her lawsuit against Yelp after discovering that Yelp is protected under the Communications Decency Act, which bans recovery against websites for publishing third-party content.

Defendants Tai Jing and Jia Ma’s initial motion to strike down the dentist’s lawsuit was only successful in that the court allowed the case against Jia Ma to be dismissed, but ruled that Dr. Wong’s libel claim against Tai Jing could move forward.

Burden of proof on dentist . . .

The appellate court’s decision is important because it defines that the burden of proof in a defamation case and will set the tone for future lawsuits over negative online reviews. The burden of proof does not fall to the individuals accused of posting an online review to prove that they had not done so, but instead falls with the the plaintiff to prove who posted the review.

Some feel the doctor over-reacted and the publicity surrounding the lawsuit will be bad for her dental business, while others feel consumers need to stick to the facts and consider their words when posting a negative online review.

If you were Dr. Wong, how would you have handled an online review you felt was libelous? Is it bad PR for a dentist to sue a former patient over a negative online review?

For more information regarding this lawsuit, see How accurate is your Yelp review? and Court of Appeal Allows Dentist’s Libel Claim Based on Yelp Review.

Filed Under: Legal, The Wealthy Dentist Tagged With: dental editorials, dental lawsuits, dental legislation, Dental News, dentist, dentistry legislation, Internet dental marketing, negative online reviews, yelp, yelp reviews

Do Negative Online Reviews Really Matter To Dentists?

April 26, 2011 By Jim Du Molin 7 Comments

dentists negative online reviews While the idea of a negative online review strikes fear into the hearts of many dentists, others feel a good number of the negative reviews are bogus.

That’s because some dentists asked negative reviewers to contact them to discuss the matter, and heard nothing — or the dentist knew the alleged incident did not occur in their office.

The Wealthy Dentist decided to conduct a survey to ask dentists if they have experienced a negative online review and how they handled the situation. 64% of dentists responded that they have received a negative online review, with 31% saying they received more than one. Only 36% have not (yet) experienced a negative online review.

The slight majority (33%) received just one negative online review.

Here are some dentist comments:

“A staff member was able to find out who posted the review and they weren’t a patient. It was just someone posting negative things about businesses randomly.” (California dentist)
“I was listed on Yelp and I tried contacting the patients but they were fictitious or non-responsive.” (Massachusetts dentist)
“Not quite sure what to do- the patient hasn’t been to our office in 3-4 years and must have gotten some itch to slam us online.” (Michigan dentist)
“These reviews appear to be bogus. I have a small practice and many of the negative items mentioned do not even apply to me. Could be my ex-partner . . . I also wonder if it could be the reputation police.” (General dentist)
“Had to respond twice. We suspect the X-wife of my boyfriend! Just replied and asked other patients to do positive testimonials to counteract the negative one. Legal action was too expensive.” (California dentist)
“It was not a patient of record and the complaint made no sense, but it was taken down after 2 or 3 years.” (Oral Surgeon)
“It was on a neighborhood website. I contacted an attorney and then emailed the web admin and threatened to sue. They took the comments away immediately. I was surprised they did. The comments were completely ridiculous and it wasn’t like I could post photos of the patients’ cavities in retaliation due to HIPAA. I haven’t had any bad reviews on true internet sites like Yelp or Angie’s List or any of the others that I am aware of. I think it essentially gives the 10% (who are never satisfied) the megaphone.” (Georgia dentist)
“We tried to contact reviewer — to no avail.” (Florida Dentist)

Filed Under: Dental Surveys, The Wealthy Dentist Tagged With: dental lawsuits, dentists, Internet dental marketing, negative online reviews, online reviews, yelp, yelp reviews

Dentists on the Fence About Social Media Site Yelp

March 29, 2011 By Catherine Hughes 9 Comments

When asked if their dental practice has been affected by consumer review website Yelp.com, dentists were divided between feeling that Yelp is good for their practice, Yelp has caused problems for their practice, and being unsure if Yelp was having an effect on their practice.

Yelp.com is a social networking, user review, and local search website. A few years back it was accused of burying negative customer reviews in exchange for money.

Due to this allegation and the backlash it ensued, Yelp changed its review policies and advertising techniques.

We were curious if this was having any effect on dental practices. Many of the dentists surveyed had strong opinions about their experiences with Yelp.

“One of our dentists had one negative review and many positive reviews,” noted one dentist. “Yet the negative review was always the first one shown.”

In this survey, 41% of dentists didn’t know if Yelp was having an effect on their practice, 31% felt Yelp caused problems, and 28% say Yelp is good for business.

Here are some dentist comments:

“We have had a couple poor reviews from two young males. Both complained about our fees.” (California dentist)
“Patients get to lie on Yelp, but because of HIPAA, we cannot tell the truth about the patient and what really happened.” (Georgia dentist)
“I’m not a big believer in Government Regulation, but I don’t believe attacks should be one-sided . . . there are always two sides to every story, and the dentist’s side Never gets out! These sites should be forced to allow the Practitioner response.” (Arkansas dentist)
“Only one review — and it’s positive — so don’t know the impact.” (Georgia dentist)
“According to San Francisco Chronicle, the owner is a lawyer who started his business by fabricating bad reviews about 800 businesses, which he extorted money from in order to remove the same bad reviews. He tries to hide behind the first amendment. He has caused tremendous damage to dentists all across US by letting disgruntled patients vent numerous insults, while making good reviews about the practice from happy patients disappear to an unreachable filtered section.” (California dentist)
“Anonymous blogs/posts can be placed demeaning anyone! The Tattletale websites: Yelp, Angie’s List, Yahoo, etc take no responsibility on the accuracy. These sites have a poor track record (in my opinion).” (General dentist)

Filed Under: Dental Surveys, The Wealthy Dentist Tagged With: dental marketing, dentist online reviews, dentists, Internet dental marketing, online review sites, online reviews, yelp

Dentist Review Websites You Should Know

March 25, 2009 By Julie Frey 10 Comments

We've been talking about online reputation management for dentists on consumer review websites.

We recommend monitoring what patients are saying about you on the Internet, but not taking it too seriously. Freaking out or filing lawsuits isn't likely to be in your best interest.

The Players

If you want to find out what people are saying about you, you need to know where to look. Here are the major players in the public dentist review business. To give you a sense of each site's scope, we've seen how many dentists are listed for two sample areas: San Francisco, California, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Note that the numbers may not be directly comparable, since some sites provide results only for a specific city, while others search the entire metropolitan area.)

Though most of these sites are national, each geographic market has its own favorites. Ask around to find out which site is preferred by people in your area.

Yelp (1,660 dentists in San Francisco, 280 in Milwaukee)
Firmly entrenched in the San Francisco area, Yelp serves 24 urban markets in the US. These days, Yelp is generally considered to be the industry leader in the consumer review category. The site covers all sorts of businesses and professionals.

Angie's List (500 dentists in the San Francisco and San Jose area, 300 in Milwaukee)
This site is different in that there is a small monthly fee in order to view reviews. This site is especially popular in the Midwest.

DR. Oogle (850 family dentists listed for San Francisco, 80 family dentists in Milwaukee)
This website calls itself "The Good Dentist Guide" and specializes in dentist reviews, boasting over 100,000 reviews and more than 5,000 registered dentists. It is based in San Francisco, but serves most major metropolitan areas. Some San Francisco dentists have hundreds of reviews. The site does allow dentists to reply to comments and remove their listings. It may display information on high-ranking dentists on competitor's listings, but these are not paid advertisements.

RateMDs (70 dentists listed for San Francisco, 7 in Milwaukee)
Founded by the man who created RateMyProfessors.com, this site lets users review medical professionals. You can register to respond directly to any comments made about you, but you cannot remove your name from their listings.

Judy's Book (70 dentists listed for San Francisco, 3 in Milwaukee)
A more minor player in the review game, this site was recently sold and relaunched. In the Health & Medical section, there's a category for "Coroners"… one can only imagine the situation in which an ordinary person would have cause to rate a coroner… or the situation in which an ordinary person would go shopping online to find the most highly-recommended coroner.

Insider Pages (170 reviewed dentists and 1,800 total dentist listings for San Francisco, 43 reviewed dentists and 900 total listings for Milwaukee)
The site appears to list a massive number of doctors, but most listings do not include customer reviews. Owners can add coupons and messages about their businesses to their listings.

CitySearch (50 reviewed dentists and 273 total dentist listings for San Francisco, 110 reviewed dentists and 1,228 total listings for Milwaukee)
CitySearch recently acquired Insider Pages.

Google (1,140 dentists with consumer ratings in the greater San Francisco area, 560 in the greater Milwaukee area)
Though it's rarely mentioned as a review site, Google's local business search allows users to enter in their own ratings and reviews, but most of the reviews are from other sites such as those listed above. This means that a review on one website can find its way to Google. Since many people to go to Google to find local businesses, expect these ratings to carry more weight over time.

Wondering How To Search for Yourself?

Option one is to go to each of the above websites and browse the directory or search the listings for yourself. But it turns out there's an easier way…

The second option is to let Google do the heavy lifting for you. But to take advantage of this option, you're going to need to determine your keywords. Then you'll use Google to search each website, one at a time, for those keywords.

Take a moment to consider which keywords would best identify you. You'll want to select some combination of the following:

Your last name. (If you have a common last name, you might also include your first name.)
A geographic identifier: your town, city or state.
Your dental practice name, or a keyword in your practice name.
Either "Dr." or "dentist."

Then go to Google. In the search box, enter the keywords that will identify you. Then you'll want to specify which site you want Google to search; do this by entering "site:www.yelp.com" or whichever website you're interested in.

So let's review: The text you enter in the Google search box should look something like one of these:

Boucher Kansas Dentist site:www.yelp.com
Dr. Stillman Toronto site:www.droogle.com
"Gentle Dental" Boston site:www.insiderpages.com

You'll then see a complete listing of everywhere on that site where your keywords appear.

Once you find your profile, it's a good idea to bookmark it. You might get in the habit of checking your reviews about once a month.

One More Time – Which Sites Should I Check?

We recommend taking a look at all of the sites listed above. Once again, here they are:

www.yelp.com
www.DoctorOogle.com
www.RateMDs.com
www.InsiderPages.com
www.CitySearch.com
www.JudysList.com
www.AngiesList.com [NOTE: Angie's List requires a paid subscription to see full reviews.]
local.google.com [NOTE: Go to Google Maps and search for your keywords there to find your listing.]

You might be surprised to find out what people are saying about you… Because, like it or not, the Yelp Revolution has happened, and you don't get to control all information about your dental practice anymore.