sharon sanders
Editor-in-Chief & President
This site is designed to help patients, doctors, and websites understand the problems created by Medical Justice, a company trying to restrict online patient reviews, and to offer some ways that let patients freely talk about their healthcare experiences.
Medical Justice sells contracts to doctors?we call them ?anti-review contracts?? that either expressly prohibit patients? online reviews or permit patients to post online reviews so long as doctors can remove them whenever they want. In exchange for these restrictions, the contracts promise patients purportedly greater privacy. However, this privacy promise is illusory, and the restrictions these contracts impose on online reviews are a bad deal for patients?and everyone else.
Medical Justice?s efforts may be a sign of things to come. Imagine if other companies used similar contracts. Before you get a haircut, before you buy a six-pack of soda at the local grocery store or before you order a meal at a restaurant, imagine you were required to keep quiet and never post your opinion online about the product or service your purchased. Sound ridiculous? It does to us, and we think it?s no less ridiculous when doctors demand this of their patients.
This site explains why anti-review contracts are bad for doctors, bad for patients and bad for online review websites. We offer practical tips to avoid these contracts. For more information, explore our website or contact us.
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For Patients
What is an anti-review contract?
An anti-review contract, often ironically labeled a ?Mutual Agreement to Maintain Privacy,? is a contract where patients give up some or all of their freedom to review their doctor online. These promises usually come in the form of a flat-out promise not to review the doctor or a promise to assign ownership of any online reviews to the doctor so they can take them down in the future if they don?t like what the reviews say. In exchange, the doctor promises to respect the patient?s privacy. Doctors obtain these contracts from a company called Medical Justice, which licenses the contracts to its member-doctors because it promises that the contracts will prevent online defamation.
To see sample language from Mutual Agreements like the ones that Medical Justice licenses to doctors, click here.
http://doctoredreviews.com/patients/
Medical Justice sells contracts to doctors?we call them ?anti-review contracts?? that either expressly prohibit patients? online reviews or permit patients to post online reviews so long as doctors can remove them whenever they want. In exchange for these restrictions, the contracts promise patients purportedly greater privacy. However, this privacy promise is illusory, and the restrictions these contracts impose on online reviews are a bad deal for patients?and everyone else.
Medical Justice?s efforts may be a sign of things to come. Imagine if other companies used similar contracts. Before you get a haircut, before you buy a six-pack of soda at the local grocery store or before you order a meal at a restaurant, imagine you were required to keep quiet and never post your opinion online about the product or service your purchased. Sound ridiculous? It does to us, and we think it?s no less ridiculous when doctors demand this of their patients.
This site explains why anti-review contracts are bad for doctors, bad for patients and bad for online review websites. We offer practical tips to avoid these contracts. For more information, explore our website or contact us.
-------------
For Patients
What is an anti-review contract?
An anti-review contract, often ironically labeled a ?Mutual Agreement to Maintain Privacy,? is a contract where patients give up some or all of their freedom to review their doctor online. These promises usually come in the form of a flat-out promise not to review the doctor or a promise to assign ownership of any online reviews to the doctor so they can take them down in the future if they don?t like what the reviews say. In exchange, the doctor promises to respect the patient?s privacy. Doctors obtain these contracts from a company called Medical Justice, which licenses the contracts to its member-doctors because it promises that the contracts will prevent online defamation.
To see sample language from Mutual Agreements like the ones that Medical Justice licenses to doctors, click here.
http://doctoredreviews.com/patients/