Entrepreneurial types much more clever than myself are continuing to find ways to “make a buck” on the Internet. One of the latest is the availability of numerous sites for patients to rate their doctors. Sounds benign and these folks are selling advertising to take advantage of the traffic that goes to the “rate your Doctor” sites.

 

These sites can quickly become anything but benign for a doctor that is the target of someone that wants to trash that doctor’s reputation. Suppose your name was up and you had dozens of patients that wrote things like, “Dr. XYZ is very gentle and always explains to me….he is great!” or “the office is always on time and the people are so helpful. I highly recommend Great Creek Dental.” But then one disgruntled person (anonymously of course) posts untruthful rantings like:

 

“They were so mean. I would never go back there.” Translation: They wanted me to pay.

 

“They never told me that I had gum disease, now I will lose some teeth.” Translation: They told me that I needed to see a periodontist immediately four years ago but I didn’t think it was important because nothing hurt.

 

“Dr. X is too expensive.” Translation: My vacation is more important than having my dental problems solved, they are just teeth anyway. OR, They overcharged me because my insurance company sent a letter to me telling me so.

 

“I didn’t have these dark triangles until I had my teeth cleaned at Dr. SoSo’s office.”  Translation: My calculus bridge held my teeth in just fine.

 

Ok, so I digress while having a little fun here, but the truth is that one person can post anything that could be seen by hundreds or even thousands of internet surfers and have a major long-lasting negative impact on your livelihood. Certainly, there will be legitimate complaints but these “rating” websites are not the appropriate mechanism to air criticisms.

 

There have been recent cases of litigation for defamation of character or “internet defamation” in California. I certainly do not know how to stop this from happening. Be aware that this practice is happening now. Sure, one could bring a defamation suit but once a vicious remark is posted, the damage has been done. The Internet provides a wealth of information; unfortunately, a lot of it is inaccurate or just downright trash.

 

Most of these “rate the doctor” sites have your name. When someone performs an Internet search for “dentist Austin, Texas” several links will appear with teasers of evaluations. Should you want to read more about what someone has posted, you will need to subscribe to read more.

 

Certainly everything that we do has consequences. This is another example of why good communication with each and every patient is always paramount. We as dentists far surpass other fields in successfully helping others in preventing disease. It is also wise to practice prevention of bad doctor-patient relationships because not doing so can result in very undesirable results.