Dentist Who Used Copyright To Silence Her Patients Drops Out of Sight

According to a report at Ars Technica, a dentist named Stacy Makhnevich, who billed herself as "the Classical Singer Dentist of New York," threatened patients who wrote bad Yelp reviews with lawsuits, along the same lines as the online dental damage-control outlined in a different Ars story in 2011. This time, though, there's something even stranger than bargaining with patients to forgo criticism: when a patient defied that demand by describing his experience in negative terms on Yelp, Makhnevich followed up on the threat by seeking a takedown order based on copyright (putatively signed over to her for any criticism that patients might write, post-visit) — then disappeared entirely when lawyers for patient Robert Lee filed a class-action lawsuit challenging the validity of the agreement.

Comments

Form Paperwork Used by Many

[Frosty Piss]

Who knows what's up with this dentist. But the company who provides the form paperwork is really the people that the lawyers should be going after. D. Makhnevich is only one of many many who use this company's services / products.

Also this points out why I never pay much attention to Yelp: This dentist is rightfully getting a lot of heat over this business, but most of the "opinions" about her on Yelp are by people who have almost certainly never used her services. This is how it goes when businesses get bad publicity, everyone runs to trash them on Yelp regardless of if they have ever done business with whoever is the target.

There are a number of other sites that specialize in doctor ratings from patient that have a significantly different score for this clown.

What's most surprising about this story.

[BitterOak]

What's most surprising about this story to me is that any patients would sign such a contract. According to the article, it is supposedly to increase privacy protections for the patient, but how many dentists go around spilling the beans about their patients' teeth? And are your tooth secrets that serious that you'd be willing to sign over copyright of your internet posts so your dentist will keep them? Are you really that afraid your friends will find out you don't floss regularly?

Re:What's most surprising about this story.

[Hans Lehmann]

Most patients, when walking into the office of a new medical provider, are given a stack of forms to sign by a harried receptionist who expects them to just sign the paperwork and hand it back. Few people actually read them.

Re:What's most surprising about this story.

[KingMotley]

I always do. I read absolutely everything that I sign, because there are too many unscrupulous people out there. You never know what bullshit is in those contracts, and I've even refused to sign some, and some they've changed or removed clauses

Re:What's most surprising about this story.

[Kell Bengal]

Likewise. I actually refused to sign the boiler plate at a new dentist after I moved. Upon close reading, the forms insisted that I agree to undergo any procedure the dentist thought necessary for the care of my teeth. So, don't want that root canal the dentist says you need? Too bad - you've already agreed to it. So, I crossed out those parts and corrected the language until it was something I was satisfied with. I called it to the attention of the receptionist and said "I don't agree to these terms as is. I have modified it in the following way, as noted on the form." Signed and handed it back. Not a peep out of them - they were as surprised as I was! They likely had no idea that clause was even in their paperwork, probably inserted by an over-zealous lawyer at some point.

Re:What's most surprising about this story.

[Jane Q. Public]

"I always do. I read absolutely everything that I sign, because there are too many unscrupulous people out there. You never know what bullshit is in those contracts, and I've even refused to sign some, and some they've changed or removed clauses"

Me too. And I have a good story. You should be aware that this works both ways, and you can use it to your advantage.

Years ago, I had to take a pee test for a pre-employment "drug screening". I have a strong philosophical objection to that practice, but I wanted the job so I did it. (I don't do that anymore, but that's another story.)

So I got to the clinic, which specialized in doing pee tests en masse. Big waiting room, lots of chairs and people, window with a woman behind it. She handed me a form to sign on a clipboard, and I sat down and read the whole thing. And it amazed me. The form said that the clinic could tell anybody (not just the company) anything they wanted about my pee test, even if it was wrong, and I waived any right to hold them responsible in any way.

I went up to the window and asked the woman: "Do I understand this correctly? You are in the business of doing these tests, yes?"

"Yes"

"But in order for you to test me, I have to waive any right to sue you or hold you responsible, even if you screw it up?"

(Annoyed look) "It's just a standard form."

I said "Well, I don't think it is. I think I'd like to own a business where nobody could hold me responsible for actually performing the service they pay me for. Seems like a pretty sweet deal." She looked pretty pissed off.

I sat back down, looking it over. And on the second page of the fine print, where it said I could not hold them responsible, I penned in "Except in case of negligence."

I signed the form and gave it back to the woman. She didn't even look at it... just signed and dated it, and threw it into the pile of papers to file.

Hahaha. I could have written in "And I get to fuck your brother" and nobody would even have noticed. But it was just as legal a contract as anything THEY handed ME.

Re:What's most surprising about this story.

[AK Marc]

You mistakenly assumed my stance. I stated that it would take a very long time to read everything. I have a pack from my closing. It's more than 100 pages. Reading for comprehension of a set of contracts that long would likely not be under an hour.

I understand clicking through a EULA for a video game or something,

Ah, like all jackasses, you don't follow your own rules, but you have excuses why your way and only your way is the right way. No other way is acceptable. Got it.

Re:What's most surprising about this story.

[Raenex]

Ah, since you mentioned the verbal part I thought it was essential to your dispute. Something else has been nagging me, though, and it's your statement, "The 'bad debt' from 1991 was still on my credit report last I looked. It's 'active' and renewed for another 7 years every time it's sold from one collection agency to another."

That looked so rotten that I had a hard time believing it was legal, and a preliminary search shows it isn't:

"[..] Federal law requires the lender to report the original delinquency date of the account that led to charge off and any subsequent collection efforts. The original delinquency date is the date from which the seven year period is measured.

The original account and any subsequent collection accounts are deleted seven years from the original delinquency date. Because each account must include the original delinquency date, none should return to your credit history. [..]"

Re:What's most surprising about this story.

[BenEnglishAtHome]

I can't count the number of threats of law suits a $400 debt got me.

Something similar happened to me and it bugged the heck out of me until I finally had a flash of insight. The collection agency was always willing to threaten me with "We have a recording of our last conversation. Would you like me to play it back for you?"

One day they threatened to sue. I replied "You promise?" The collection troll didn't understand. "If you sue me, then we get to go in front of a judge who will force you to shut up long enough for me to explain why I don't owe any money. I want you to sue me."

"Well, we will."

"OK. Just remember, you promised."

They called me a couple of times after that. I reminded them of the fact that they had promised to sue me and I was waiting to be served papers to appear in court. I also reminded them that they had a recording of them promising to sue me.

They hung up on me a couple of times and then I never heard from them or anyone else about it again.

Re:What's most surprising about this story.

[dcollins]

"What's most surprising about this story to me is that any patients would sign such a contract."

Read the Ars Technica piece by the writer who tried to say "no" to such a contract. In short: he gets booted out the door. Now imagine you're in pain and maybe scared about a possible medical emergency (as the patient in the lawsuit here was). Situations like that is why oversight of a time-critical service like this is needed.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/all-your-reviews-are-belong-to-us-medical-justice-vs-patient-free-speech/

Re:What's most surprising about this story.

[Gavrielkay]

IANAL, however I think modifications to boiler plate contracts have to be initialized by both parties to be valid. And that's for your benefit or they could add whatever they wanted after you signed it and claim it was there all along. So, funny story, but unless you pointed out your addition to them and got someone to initial it, you probably didn't really accomplish anything.

Re:What's most surprising about this story.

[AK Marc]

Troll the trollers. Honed on Slashdot, used on collections agents.

I've never heard so many lies from anyone other than collections. I managed to stump them by asking them to send me an itemized bill. "I'll pay it if you can bill me for it" But all they had was that they bought some IOU off someone else who had bought it from someone else... So they had no idea of what I owned for what. $20 for pencil, $350 in fees, interest, and penalties. Nope, it was $400 - best guess as to a debt amount. Begging them to send me a written bill for what I owe so I can pay it got them confused and shut them up.

Re:What's most surprising about this story.

[oobayly]

But in your case the clause wouldn't have been necessary as she informed you before the procedure what may actually have to be done. You could have told her that you couldn't afford the crown, so if the tooth can't support a filling just remove it (unlikely, but it's your prerogative).

Re:What's most surprising about this story.

[scotts13]

So, I crossed out those parts and corrected the language until it was something I was satisfied with. I called it to the attention of the receptionist and said "I don't agree to these terms as is. I have modified it in the following way, as noted on the form." Signed and handed it back.

I do the same, all the time. I was once asked to take a lie detector test (for, of all things, a job at Radio Shack). When I read the forms, they reserved the right to re-sell the results of the test to anyone, in perpetuity. They also denied me any right to challenge those results. I crossed out the offensive sections and handed it in. To their credit, they (the testing company) DID read my revisions, and said it wasn't worth their while to continue under those conditions. They didn't test me, and I got the job anyway.

Probably Not Enforceable Anyway

[Jane Q. Public]

In order to be a valid contract, there has to be "consideration" on both sides.

What is the "consideration" given to the patient, in exchange for giving up copyright? Clearly it isn't dentistry, since that could be had elsewhere without the requirement of waiving copyright.

So what did Makhnevich give patients in exchange for that? If nothing, then there is no contract.

I suppose it's remotely possible that the patients were trading their copyright for dentistry, but that seems a pretty thin argument.

Re:Probably Not Enforceable Anyway

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Still, I feel sorry for small businesses today -- are there any restaurants whose online listings aren't choking with "gross" and "I'll never go there again!"

The Better Business Bureau has a mechanism to take complaints and give the business a way to respond and resolve the issues. All this also assumes the complaints are real and not just made up derogatory astroturfing online of competitors.

Re:Probably Not Enforceable Anyway

[Zemran]

My ex-wife does catering for local hotels, i.e. she rents their restaurants and runs them for them. So I know a little bit about the local hotels. Last year a friend wanted to stay in my city but he wanted a top end hotel and my ex works with the mid range hotels so apart from asking her advice I looked at the internet sites. Most had very similar comments. Several comments were very obviously professionally written and I could even see the same style of writing in several comments. Anyway, one hotel interested me. It had several comments including a story about room service stealing a guests mobile phone and about how the guest was very badly treated by reception when they complained. There were lots of replies and debate about how terrible this was. The story interested me because I knew that the hotel had not opened yet and had not employed any staff.

The hotels hire advertising companies who will write glowing stories about the hotel (lies) and write bad stories about the opposition. I am talking about hotels but I am sure that the concept applied to all areas of debate on the internet.

Re:Probably Not Enforceable Anyway

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The Better Business Bureau has a mechanism to take complaints and give the business a way to respond and resolve the issues.

The BBB is a scam, they just have really good marketing like DeBeers quality marketing.

The way it works is that dues-paying BBB members get to have their records wiped of any unresolved complaints after a certain period, usually about a year although it varies between BBB offices. Non-members do not get their records wiped under any circumstances. So when a disgruntled customer files a BBB complaint about a non-member business, the BBB uses that as a marketing tool to get that business to start paying dues.

The end result is that you can only trust BBB records of non-members, because they never get wiped, while a dues-paying BBB "member in good standing" may have hundreds of unresolved complaints that have simply expired. Occasionally a BBB office will "fire" a really egregious dues-paying member, but AFAIK there is no consistent set of rules across all BBB offices for when, if ever, that is required.

Re:Who gives a fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an asshole because I suggest that content of character is more important than (mostly innate) qualities like intelligence and appearance?

I stand by what I said: values are more important than skills. A good person is better than a clever or a sexy person.

I have found kids to judge people only based on "niceness" too, until the adult competitive world bashes into their head that they must look at less important things. Hormones do make people care about physical appearance, but the particularly physical qualities people find attractive vary tremendously except when society forces particular obsessions (e.g. in the US breasts are a huge taboo therefore big breasts are a Thing in the US, whereas in Europe people fixate much less on them).

Re:still no match for Orly Taitz

[Opportunist]

"values held by rich people who were brought up properly"... Like, knowing how to scam properly to not get caught, or at least get bailed out by taxpayer money? Or what exactly do you mean?

Re:"murica

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Land of the free

Sounds better than the land of unbalanced malloc, don't you think?

Dentist Who

[Noughmad]

The much less popular time lord.

Copyright not her only worry

[EmagGeek]

I imagine this class action lawsuit is not the reason she is on the run. I would think that if what Lee said was true, and she was charging insurance companies $4000 for a $200 job, she has bigger problems.

All speculation, but it seems to me this is a "take the money and run before I get discovered for widespread multimillion dollar insurance fraud" disappearing act rather than a "OMG a civil law suit! Run!" disappearing act.