Doctors Trying to Silence Patients
Doctors making patients sign “gag orders” prohibiting them from commenting in online forums? Jeffrey Segal, a North Carolina neurosurgeon and CEO of the fancifully-named “Medical Justice”, provides such a waiver agreement for doctors to use in an attempt to clamp down on their patients’ first amendment rights. According to the AP, some doctors are turning to this kind of ham-handed approach in an effort to keep their patients from posting comments on review sites. Does anyone think they’re concerned about positive comments?
Trying to use waivers like this is wrong, for so many reasons. For starters, these agreements are highly unlikely to be enforced. Most medical agreements are contracts of adhesion, and must meet standards of reasonableness. A court isn’t likely to find that someone who is signing an agreement in order to receive medical care expects to waive away their first amendment rights.
So, if you’re going to take a legally-tenuous position, there should at least be a major upside opportunity, right? Here’s what else the doctors get: Patients who balk at signing the agreement and go elsewhere. Patients who wonder what the doctor has to hide. Ridicule and scorn from the community and press should they ever venture into a public forum and attempt to enforce one of these gag orders.
Look, the train has left the station when it comes to online information. Consumers increasingly value client and user reviews, whether they’re buying a vacuum, hiring a bankruptcy lawyer or looking for a dermatologist. They understand the limits of reviews, and how to balance user feedback against other data points such as years of practice, accreditations, industry leadership and disciplinary history. Desperate attempts to silence online voices are going to end badly for those doctors who use these gag orders. Here’s a suggestion – try better bedside manner, encourage happy patients to post reviews, and thicken your skin and accept the fact that a few unhappy ones will post something you don’t like.
March 5th, 2009 at 7:58 am
I think doctors may still have that sense of entitlement that comes from a tradition of reverence for the medical profession. Increasingly, though, the public has seen doctors not so much as savers of lives, but normal people who’s mistakes get well-publicized.
March 5th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Clearly this is an attempt to reset the clock, as you suggest. Thankfully gone are the days where we walked into a doctors office completely ignorant to health information, drugs, side effects, and alternatives. I work every day along with thousands of others online to make health information more accessible to consumers; one critical component to being informed comes from greater transparency around the medical provider.
While “Medical Justice” may think it’s doing the right thing, it in fact pushes doctors in precisely the wrong direction. Consumers need, above all else, a high level of trust in their medical provider. Pressure to sign a gag order trashes this trust building from the very outset.
In the spirit of free speech and transparency, the moment we receive a C&D letter from Medical Justice cops, we’ll announce this to our audience. Something like: “This doctor does not accept public comments about their services and uses a paid service to halt your right to share information with other patients. Please donate to EFF”
August 2nd, 2010 at 10:14 am
[...] point with the reviewer – or sue them. Some doctors have even taken to requiring patients to sign away their right to comment [...]