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Doctors To Patients: First, Do No Yelp Harm
theodp writes "When he walked into the dentist's office, Ars Technica's Timothy B. Lee was looking for cleaner teeth, but was shown the door after expressing outrage at being asked to first sign a 'mutual privacy agreement' calling for him to transfer ownership of any public commentary he might write in the future about his experience to the good doctor. Lee reports that similar censorious copyright agreements are popping up in doctors' offices across the country. 'Doctors and dentists are understandably worried about damage to their reputations from negative reviews,' writes Lee, but 'censoring patients is the wrong way for doctors to deal with online criticism.'"
Have these dentists never heard of the Streisand Effect? If anyone asked me to sign one of these I'd go right on Yelp and report it. Then everyone would know the professional in question has something to hide.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
when your own sig file outs you as a shill/troll, I really have to wonder what the internet is coming to.
We've got from people trolling legitimate users, to trolls trolling trolls, to trolls trolling themselves.
You should probably find another doctor or dentist.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
If I get bad enough service anywhere, I will post a review somewhere. Mostly products and restaurants, but I've done it for a doctor that gave me an appointment 3 months out and then was hours late.
I almost never do this with my real name. It can be my pseudonymous yelp, google, etc. account. No doctor would be able to know that some nick is my real name. Unless they want to get a subpoena for every negative review (actually I can see some asshole doctors doing this) there is no way to enforce this policy.
Man, you really need that seminar!
The office complained that the main reason to ask people to sign these was that non-patients were fraudulently posting lies and negative information on message boards. When Timothy asked how this NDA would even apply to non-patients, they shut up and couldn't answer him.
There is absolutely no 100% safe and effective medicinal treatment for anything. No matter what it is, there is both the possibility it might not work, might have a side effect, or what not. To claim that any medical treatment is 100% safe and effective proves that you are just shilling.
Masturbation is a medical treatment and is 100% safe and effective.
While I don't agree with such contracts, I really can understand why doctors would want to use them.
Back in the day (5-10 years ago), most doctor reviews were tempered by face-to-face interaction. "Hey Bill, how's your dentist?" -- "He's alright. Just ask to get gassed and all dentists are good, am I right?"
But come the internet with pseudonymity (or at least obscurity), people have deemed themselves connoisseurs of consumption-- veritable professional critics of the utterly mundane.
Yelp houses an asinine number of these people who will judge an entire business (small, large, chain, etc.) on single experiences. Their words will be filled with praise or disdain. Hate or Love. They photograph EVERYTHING, photograph and compare perfect omelets, critique the crispness of lettuce in salads, comfort of chairs in waiting rooms, and even banter of workers.
They scrutinize everything mundane because the quality of service and products are so similar, there's NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT otherwise. They polarize their opinions with "Avoid this place!!!" and "YOU MUST TRY THIS PLACE OUT!" and given the following on sites like Yelp, it actually affects business.
And it's not as though histories of reviews can be wiped. I know of one small bike shop that was, understandably, railed for its elitist attitudes towards budget bikes. When new management came in (bike hippy instead of Lycra-rider), the Bike Shop itself changed, but it still had to fight 3 years of bad reviews on Yelp.
I really don't blame doctors for attempting this route. There are better ways to go about it, though.
What are they thinking? The doctors aren't thinking outside the box enough. Really, instead of getting people to sign old-fashioned contracts, they should emulate the EULA. You know, by putting up a plaque in their office which says something like this:
Amateurs.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
This type of thing should be illegal.
Why? it is a voluntary contact. Yes, it is stupid. That just means you need to find a new doctor.
First thing wrong is it hampers someones right to free speech.
No, it doesn't. Again, a voluntary contract. Your speech is only limited if you sign the contract - just like a Non Disclosure Agreement.
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Deaths and paralysis That's just from a quick google for "chiropractic harm", there are MANY MANY more.
Part of the problem is when ever someone is unhappy it is now much too easy to rant about your disapproval. However positive messages are harder to come by. For many these angry rants are not about facts but emotions of the time, and often a misunderstanding of the service they will receive.
A minor lapse in bedside manner, or just telling the patient something they didn't want to hear could effect their credentials.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It would be unenforceable. You would have been forced to sign under duress to seek potentially life saving treatment, if you were able to sign at all.
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While I have no doubt that proper chiropractic technique is safe and effective, there is always the possibility that the chiropractor didn't use proper technique or doesn't use the correct technique for the problem. That and I can say from personal experience that different chiropractors have different techniques and some are better then others. My last chiropractor was actually a husband/wife team and even though they tried to use the same technique, there was clear differences between the two of them. While they were OK (neither harmed me) I honestly have a hard time recommending them because I didn't get the same results as the guy I had used prior who unfortunately moved out of state.
My current chiropractor is much better and is far more open to listening to me and working with me and my life style to improve my health. Frankly he listens to me while my old one wanted to tell me how to live (specifically stop racing motorcycles).
Another reason I would give a negative review of my old chiropractor is that while he correctly had me get a MRI for my lower back, he then dismissed the analysis by the neurologist THAT HE RECOMMENDED and then made no changes in adjusting me. After I changed chiropractors, I had a new analysis done by a different neurologist (recommended by my current chiropractor) and the result is he changed how he adjusts me and the results have been fantastic.
Long story short, it's more then about someone causing your physical harm, but rather adjustment table side manner and technique which works for the patient.
Lastly, I'm really tired of the "us vs. them" mentality that chiropractors tend to have with the medical community. I'm not paying you so I can listen to how poorly you're treated by evil Big Pharma or people with Ph.D.'s. Bad mouthing others is a poor way of building a positive and long term relationship with a client.
Thanks a lot. You posted this in jest, but this exact EULA is now hanging in my dentist's office.
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He is a troll and you are ignorant.
Demons of stupidity be gone from this man, rAmen!
Educate thyself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cervical
Or, alternatively, chiropractors are nothing more than pseudo-scientific babbling witch doctors who shouldn't be allowed within a hundred yards of anyone with actual back problems.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You would have to go to court and spend thousands of dollars you may not have to fight such a thing.
Legal or not, the mere cost of fighting it will silence many people.
There's an "us vs. them" because chiropractors are voodoo witch doctors.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I'm not sold on this. If I was a dentist, lets say, and I want good reviews, I'll ask my customers to please rate me on such and such a site. You will _always_ have bad reviews and as a person who frequently reads reviews, I know how to filter out good and badly written reviews. If there are 10 great reviews and one complaining that the service wasn't covered under insurance or something like that, I wouldn't hold it against the dentist.
What's even more interesting, is that I actively seek out the bad reviews. When it comes to game reviews, for example, I go to the compilation sites like gamerankings etc, and purposely read the reviews that rated the game the worst. You can tell a lot about a game by the way the critical reviewers tear it apart. Maybe they only gripe about the graphics or something that just doesn't matter to me. If that's all they can muster, I can usually count on a quality experience.
Same happened when I was searching for a new dentist. The one I picked had some negative reviews, but they all boiled down to "while they were friendly and made you feel at ease.. (some complaint about money here)." So the negative review may or may not hurt "my" dentist in the long run, but I picked him because of the CONTENT of those negative reviews. The worst thing people could say was some of the stuff he did didn't end up covered fully under their particular insurance plans, that sucks, but it's your job to make sure the work will be covered before submitting to it!
In the end, the ones that censor reviews, usually have a reason why they fear them.
I kind of understand where these Dentists are coming from. I used to work at a pool construction company that was heavily impacted by unwarranted negative reviews online.
Pool owners are the worst; they're usually well off, used to getting their way, and generally don't understand how construction time tables work. They usually start thinking of a pool in March, or April, and want it done and open for Memorial Day or the 4th of July. They usually don't understand we have more than one customer who all also want their pool done on the same timeframe. Further, they don't understand we can't work in bad weather, which means time tables tend to slip in the rainy season.
So inevitably, people get delayed and it's the end of the world for them because they won't have their pool open for their all important Memorial Day BBQ. So they fly online and rant and rave about how awful our business is, because they couldn't read their contract. And of course, if you type our name into Google, the first three results that come up are from ripoffreports.com or a similar site.
What's worse is these stay online forever. We've made most all of our customers happy in the end, and they've told us they would take down or redact the negative reviews, but even they can't. So because they flew off the handle despite our goodwill efforts, we're the ones that have to suffer.
So, while I feel like the Doctor's approach isn't the most tactful, I understand where he's coming form.
Not exactly....
Orgasms touch the reward center of the brain, releasing strong amounts of dopamine. Dopamine is essential for living what is essentially a "happy" and "normal" life, positively affecting social behavior, cognitive function, etc
This is obviously stupid and censorship. But it does suck to have internet feedback as a doctor. When I search for my name on the internet, the first ten hits on google are a doctor ranking site and various copycats that mirror it. I have only one rating - my name shows up with one out of five stars and an angry tirade by a patient with psychiatric problems who became angry with one of our nurses before I even walked in the room. She accuses me of racism (and we are both white!), ignorance, etc. when I actually was quite accommodating to her quite angry demands. And due to health care laws in the US I cannot say anything in my defense.
So, basically it sucks to have your name plastered all over google as a racist without having the ability to mount a defense. But censorship is not the way to go. I think the medical profession just has to grin and bear it. Or start astro-turfing...
NDAs are a little different, at least in my mind. An NDA only gags free speech in so much as it can cause direct harm to a company. If I develop some super secret process that allowed me to turn rainbows into gold, and in the process of me contracting you to help with a part of it, you blabbed to the world how it's done, that would cause me direct financial harm.
It's my understanding that you cannot order someone under an NDA (at least, it's not enforceable) to not talk about things that either 1) would be covered as protected speech or 2) wouldn't pretty specifically be related to the information for which the NDA was signed. For example, an NDA saying that you couldn't express an opinion about a political party should be unenforceable. Also, if I am, for example, manufacturing computer equipment, I would think that an NDA keeping you from talking about what flavor gum is your favorite would be rather unenforceable. But then, IANAL, so YMMV.
As for coercion, Timothy Lee made an awesome point. When you go to a doctor's office, you are likely in need of medical help. I agree with him that this puts this "contract" in a particularly bad light. It's easy to imagine someone in a spot in which they feel like they have to sign the contract in order to prevent damage to one's health, possibly even life.
Personally, I'd be for legislation that makes such contracts explicitly illegal.
I love to talk with the managers/owners of restaurants, and have reviewed plenty on Yelp and Urbanspoon. Of course they are always very concerned about their bad reviews, and looking for ways to make the bad reviews go away. My advice to them is always the same. Leave those people alone, they are already unhappy. Rather, get your happy customers to leave good reviews and drown them out.
I've encouraged several businesses to pay the $5 for a Yelp or Urbanspoon sticker to put on their door. To claim their owner pages, and use them to post specials and send updates to regulators. To drop a reward on their "duke" on Yelp. You know what? In 2-3 months they easily amass tens or hundreds of positive reviews. Now the situation is 150 good reviews to the one bad one they were worried about, and their reputation is just fine.
The only reason these are such a big deal for most businesses is that people who feel they have been wronged are more likely to speak up. If you have only one review and it's bad, well, you look like a bad business. You will never satisfy 100% of your customers, so just get the 99% that you do to drown them out.
Easy, cheap, and builds loyalty with your regulars. Plus, you now have great reviews, so when people visit the area or move there and have nothing to go on but the reviews you'll be one of the first they try.
Use the technology, don't fight it.
I would be curious if the threat of withholding health services could be considered duress.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
When you seek out bad reviews, don't you tend to find a whole lot of ones where someone is stuck reviewing a genre they don't like or have some weird complaint that doesn't affect the game properly? I tend to see that a lot on places like Metacritic. If you look up StarCraft II and the review complains about how annoying it is that you're controlling little people instead of getting down in the action and shooting stuff personally, and how using the keyboard and mouse are too complicated, well, I think it was just the wrong reviewer for the job.
I read the internet for the articles.
I did RTFA. (yesterday, actually). A better subtitle might have been: "Scummy legal group duping doctors to request legally-unenforceable waivers from patients. Don't get caught in the loop." Doctors (or their business managers) need to be educated about why these waivers are unnecessary, unenforcable, and just bad business. Patients need to be informed and willing to fight back so this type of legal chicanery dies a quick death.
Doctors treated women with 'pelvic massages' for centuries, a treatment that apparently helped with a wide variety of illnesses. Take a look at the history of the vibrator and feel a certain relief that you're not generally greeted by steam powered masturbatory equipment at your average doctors office these days.
Original post was saying the average person has no right to criticize, as the average person is a "faux connoisseur." I was responding to this elitist post, a post that was engaging in class warfare by claiming the average person has no right to complain, as they are all just whiny egotistical complainers who are too stupid to critique the goods and services they receive.
Bullshit. This is just another elitist moaning that his sheep-like customers aren't being as sheep-like as they are supposed to be. How DARE they get together and compare notes? How is he supposed to take advantage of them, as is his right as an elite, if they actually talk to each other? There aught to be a law!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Ya, I do run into that a lot. But that's why I don't mind the bad reviews. If you put up a review that casts a negative light on something and I read that review, if I come out of that thinking your negative points were superficial and not really relevant (or to your point, just bashing the genre or controller they don't like), I'm going to think wow, that was a negative review, and that's all they had to say about it? That in my mind HELPs the game/product/service.
Then again, if the bad reviews are well thought out and bring up really good points, say, the doctor likes to make up things you don't believe you have (had those before) or puts the sales pitch on you for whitening, etc, or maybe fondles you while you're out, ya, ok. Those I could see doctors wanting to control, I mean, those would be bad for business. But general negative reviews with no real basis in practical reality, so what? No one has a perfect record (even if they did, I'd be suspicious). Let the negative reviewers speak their peace and let the positive ones drown them out.
IANAL, but...
Two good examples: real estate transfers and copyright transfers, both of which require specific written language.
The dentist's contract is inconsistent with the copyright law's requirements for copyright transfer (and hence is null and void, as a matter of law).
It is extortion for the doctor or dentist to use his position of authority so to attempt to coerce the patient in a manner contrary to law.
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
http://xkcd.com/501/
I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
Doctors should be worried, because yelp can be gamed, and they'll let the gaming happen if it's in their best interest... An anecdotal story.
I've work in a karaoke bar the last 10 years. This is before American Idol made it go crazy popular. FF>> to a few years ago...
There was a local karaoke company (this is multiple individuals, not one guy in a bar like me) who were tired of all the good press, yelp reviews, and awards our place has gotten over the years. They'd play favourites with karaoke singers to gain favour with them, then have them write negative reviews about our place (without even having set foot ONCE in there)
Around the same time yelp starts calling, "We can sort those bad reviews to the bottom of the list for $400@mo" I'd be on the phone with these jackasses for hours, saying these reviews were bogus, and how dare you try and extort money from us...
Few days later, bad review start floating to the top. The little "soundbites" (don't know what else to call them, the little highlighted bits of reviews at the top) started being nothing but negative.
I got tired of it. Being the old school dickhead BOFH that I am, I started dropping dox weekly on our website of yelp employees one by one(upper level management mostly, was leading up to stoppleman). Sure, I'd get threats, but I'd just give them the same bullshit answer they gave me, "Hey, it's publicly available info man, just like you guys told me!"
One day the owner's son (of where I work) came down to talk to me. He said, "Dude, I know these guys, they got a lawyer full time on staff, they just gotta drop this off on their desk and say "attack". Please, take down the docs.
So I did. And magically these dickheads reviews got sorted, or deleted.
Moral of the story is, yelp is fucking corrupt. If your competitor wants to slander you on yelp, you have 0 recourse without full legal action. Fuck you yelp, go suck a dick. (and yes I probably typed something similar before)
By a recent study, so is brisk walking, but combining the two can be a trifle awkward.
Who is John Cabal?
Bingo! The only problem I personally see with places like Yelp is that they are rigged to side with trolls because they make their money by going "Psst! want to make these bad reviews go away? Give us $$$ and we'll make them disappear!" now THAT should be called what it is, blackmail pure and simple.
Otherwise as long as the doc is allowed to respond they shouldn't EVER have the right to take free speech (and has anyone seen if these are legal?) from anyone. I run a little shop and can count the number of PO'ed customers on a single hand. if they wrote a bad review i'd be happy to point out they simply had unbelievable expectations (One guy wanted his PC fixed for $20, trying to haggle like it was a fricking auction, another kept disabling his AV when it wouldn't let him install "Iz_Not_ViruZ_Iz_Pron_Codec.exe" and then expected me to clean his mess for free) and let people decide.
In ANY business you are gonna have some pissed off customers, I don't care how good of a job you do. some people think the world revolves around them and they can do anything they want, like spill a Coke down a PC and expect to return it, others think a single payment gets them repairs for life. but for every moron like that a GOOD business will have easily 1000 customers that have nothing but good things to say, and if a site isn't rigged like Yelp is then the good should outweigh the bad by huge amounts. Trying to get rid of free speech isn't the answer, having professional slander sites like Yelp shut down should be.
One last thing about docs: there should be an IRONCLAD contract that states 'here are what the side effects of this drug is, by agreeing to it you agree NEVER to sue if you have these side effects after being told" because I spent 5 years in a living hell because the miracle drug that would help me was taken off the market thanks to lawsuit whores. For ANYONE that took this drug you had to not only have a 30 minute explanation of the side effects as well as agree to not have ANY kids for AT LEAST 10 years, but actually had to watch a film as well telling you this, and sign saying you had watched it. so what happened? A couple of bitches (may they fucking rot) took the drug then promptly went out and got knocked up having horribly fucked up kids in the process. They sued and got an assload of money, which caused the drug to get yanked off the market.
NEWS FLASH: ALL DRUGS HAVE SIDE EFFECTS and if we are not gonna be able to have a medication because some asshole fucks himself up on it by not following the rules and sues? Well then there are gonna be a lot of suffering people needlessly. I should be able to sign a contract with my doc and get ANY drug he thinks would help me, period the end. Medications should be decided by the doc, not a lawsuit whore. Hell it is no wonder docs are so damned panicked right now, a doc can give someone a bottle of medication and if they crush it and shove it up their ass frying their brain they'll find some asshole ambulance chaser that will sue for a billion dollars over it!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
A while back I was looking at reviews for a mechanic. There was one very highly rated, with uniformly positive reviews... all non-specifically praised him, were written in similar styles, and there tended to be 2-3 reviews on the same day followed by weeks of inactivity...
Needless to say, my BS-meter caused me to take my business elsewhere. As online reviews become increasingly important, a white-washed list of reviews is more likely to deter business than anything. Scams are a part of everyday life, so the people with money to spend tend not to fall for them.