
Doctors fire back at bad Yelp reviews – and reveal patients’ information online - petethomas
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/05/27/docs-fire-back-at-bad-yelp-reviews-and-reveal-patients-information-online/
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dragonwriter
This is clearly illegal: the purpose here is not within any of the exceptions
to explicit consent requirements for disclosure of PHI. So either it's
accurate information, and a HIPAA violation (as mentioned in the article), or
its false information, and libel.

Moreover, it creates an opportunity for malicious actors to impersonate
patients on Yelp and troll physicians into revealing PHI.

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maxharris
Then I think the laws should be amended to allow physicians to respond to
people commenting through verified accounts (and to respond with even fewer
restrictions on information posted anonymously). Doctors have rights too, and
it's important that our laws to recognize them.

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maxharris
I think that in most instances, medical professionals are absolutely right to
respond this way. They have just as much right to respond to people who write
misleading or false things about them as the baker around the corner does. The
fact that they provide medical care doesn't mean that people should be able to
walk all over them.

As to the issue of revealing personal medical information, the patient decided
to put their information up first (at least in the cases I was able to read
about). At that point, any expectation of privacy vanishes completely, and
they have no one to blame but themselves.

Alternatives:

1) Restrict how doctors can respond to reviews. Consequences: doctors will sue
patients to get misleading comments removed, require that patients sign away
the right to comment on review sites as a condition of care, and barring that,
doctors would have yet another reason to leave/never enter the profession.
(And they have plenty of reasons to leave already! Go ask your doctor!)

2) Restrict what patients can say about doctors. Consequences: patients lose
access to potentially valuable information about their doctor.

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sintaxi
Agreed. I think it is reasonable to say the patient is waiving their right to
privacy when they are choosing to publicly criticize the work of the medical
professional who's reputation matters a great deal. As long as the information
being disclosed is in reference to defending the criticism I say its fair
game.

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r2dnb
I disagree, I find this practice disgusting and unhetical. You can't have it
both ways, on the one hand be a regulated occupation given special status by
the state, and on the other hand claim free market rights.

~~~
maxharris
Would you support making medicine a free occupation that has no special state
status? I think that going in that direction would do a lot of good.

~~~
r2dnb
My point is that as soon as the state creates artificial rules - for reasons I
do not judge - you need to remain coherent to avoid an explosion of the
system.

\- Protected free Press / diluted journalist accountability, manipulations and
lies

\- Gender equality / systemic bias against men in judgements - thus creating a
new form of inequality

\- Plug your own

To answer your message, I am not necessarily saying that free press or gender
equality is bad.

What I am saying is that these systemic incoherences are killing our societies
right now because they are at best down played and at worst treated as
afterthoughts like what you do here.

It's not because the regulation seems right that we should ignore the side
effects. When you decide to take the role of God - not judging if it's right
or wrong - you've got to be at the level of the task.

Doctors have enough protections and benefits to be expected to behave in the
market following particular ethics and a particular code of conduct. The
article outlines many ways they can protect their best interests while
remaining compliant and keeping the system consistent.

