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Free Speech Rights For Patients Online

Posted on 08. Dec, 2011 by wisdom.

An interesting article appears over on drbicuspid.com over at http://www.drbicuspid.com/index.aspx?sec=sup&sub=pmt&pag=dis&ItemID=309247 titled “Lawsuit claims dentist stifled patients’ free speech rights” by Donna Domino and posted on Dec. 1 2011.

A discussion is made of a New York dentist and a class action lawsuit that was filed in late November. The complaint was filed by the Public Citizen Litigation Group.

In the case a patient went to the New York dentist and signed an agreement by Medical Justice  in which the patient agreed not to denigrate or disparage the dentist on the Internet or other broadcast media.

The patient went to the dentist because of a sore tooth and was charged $4,766 for two office visits. The patient says the insurance claim was sent to the wrong insurance company and was 25 times the going rate. The patient requested his records so he could submit the claim by himself but was told he would have to go to a third party who would charge 5% of the total bill just for copying the records.

This led the patient to get frustrated and posted negative ratings of the dentist on Yelp and DoctorBase.

This prompted the dentist to demand the comments to be removed and began invoicing the patient $100 per day for copyright infringement.

The lawsuit filed attempts to address the issue of restricting online criticism and seeks to show that the agreement signed by this patient is null and void. Further it alleges that patients signing these types of agreements violates dental ethics.

Paul Alan Levy, an attorney at Public Citizen involved in this case is quoted as saying

“What began as a case of a sore tooth is now showcasing an unconscionable practice in which doctors and dentists force patients to leave their constitutional rights at the office door. If people are upset about their care, they have a First Amendment right to tell people about it by going online and posting their thoughts on Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, and the like.”

As commented by a user of the article on drbicuspid.com the patient did have a week to potentially find another dentist.

Even so I can see how if the patient was in pain and being asked to sign forms limiting their ability to make comments online this could be problematic.

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How to Improve Your Chances to Win a Dental Malpractice Lawsuit

Posted on 20. Oct, 2011 by wisdom.

Tom over at OralAnswers has previously written a post on how to win a dental malpractice suit http://www.oralanswers.com/2010/07/sue-your-dentist-and-win-malpractice-lawsuit/

I also discuss on my U.S. Legal System and Medical Malpractice page http://www.teethremoval.com/legal_system_medical_malpractice the 4 elements you must prove to have a chance at winning a malpractice suit.

(1) the doctor to provide a standard of care to patients in the locality where the treatment occured (legal duty)

(2) the doctor breached that standard of care

(3) an injury causing damages

(4) the breach of the standard of care was the proximate cause of the injury.

Now as is quite clear on my site I disagree with the current ‘standard of care’ of removing healthy wisdom teeth in young healthy patients in the U.S. This is not the standard of care in the U.K.

I wanted to touch on an additional element in this post to help improve your chances of winning a dental malpractice lawsuit due to the aggressive tactics employed by dentists, oral surgeons, and their staff to prevent lawsuits.

As indicated on my complications page, my personal experience, and doing additional research on Yelp of wisdom teeth extraction oral surgeon reviews, it is quite clear that patients who experience symptoms and complications after having wisdom teeth extracted are sometimes told things to the effect of:

The condition was not related to the surgery, or the problems were not related to the oral surgery, or send us your follow up results/testing from a medical doctor so we can determine IF your problems are related to the oral surgery as we have not heard of that complication happening before.

Remember that dentists and oral surgeons are in the business of pulling out teeth and are hence after profit and protecting themselves from liability which all too often is at the expense of making the patient receiving  fair compensation.

When I discussed my complication of a 24/7 headache that started roughly 2 days after having 4 healthy wisdom teeth extracted with a lawyer it was suggested to me that there WAS NO WAY TO PROVE I DIDN’T HIT MY HEAD ON THE WAY OUT OF THE OFFICE OR SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENED BETWEEN THE ORAL SURGERY AND THE ONSET OF THE HEADACHE. I was unable to receive any compensation for my injuries and continue to have a 24/7 headache and my surgery occurred over 5 years ago.

The only feasible way I see to get around a lot of these issues is to VIDEO TAPE THE ORAL SURGERY AND ALL EVENTS AFTERWARDS FOR AT LEAST SEVERAL DAYS.

I would personally recommend bringing in multiple friends and family members to the oral surgery and video tape the extractions from multiple angles. You will also need to ensure you have at least 1 video camera on you at all times for like I said at least a few days after the surgery.

Now let’s be honest some dentists and oral surgeons will not be welcoming to having multiple people video taping the surgery but this is really the only way within the current confines of the law to help protect yourself and increase your chances of winning a potential suit if a complication were to occur.

Look if your dentist or oral surgeon won’t let you video tape the surgery then I would find a different one or maybe feed them some BS excuse for taping the surgery such as for a class project or something.  Otherwise I would resort to possibly bugging the oral surgeons or dentists office or hiding cameras or something in your clothes.

Current scientific evidence doesn’t support or refute having healthy wisdom teeth extracted http://www.teethremoval.com/controversy.html and this is an elective procedure. If you are going to have it done at least provide yourself the additional evidence of video tape of the event and events following the surgery to help increase your chances of a successful lawsuit if things don’t go as you would hope.

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Legal Standpoint of Oral Surgery Complications

Posted on 30. Jul, 2010 by wisdom.

As I have written on my website, I disagree with wisdom teeth removal from a legal standpoint (in addition to scientific). Essentially what I argue is that if you have your wisdom teeth extracted and suffer a complication that is not one of the better known you may not recover any money and be left with the pain, suffering, and loss of earnings for the rest of your life.

A recent oral surgeon lawsuit after wisdom teeth removal helps reaffirm my previous remarks.  The article states that Cynthia Thompson sued Dr Princell because he did not disclose all the risks of surgery and she suffered a neurological syndrome (specifically a damaged inferior alveolar nerve) as a result of the wisdom teeth removal.

“During the trial, 3 oral surgeons told the court that they knew little about the causes of the neuropathic pain syndrome and its association with extraction of wisdom teeth, according to court documents.”

This case occurred in the state of Georgia. Hence due to the complication of nerve damage occurring to Cynthia and the fact that the only risks that need to be disclosed before oral surgery are the most common ones (of which I have previously discussed with a lawyer), Cynthia is left with permanent nerve damage as a result of elective wisdom teeth removal and receives no compensation for her suffering, pain, and loss of earnings.

I personally have a problem with this case though as inferior alveolar nerve damage is a much more well known complication of wisdom teeth removal than some of the others. I argue that it is very important for oral surgeons to take data on what complications occur by their patients and release this data to other oral surgeons so that it can be compiled. I also argue that the legal system should be change to stop rewarding American doctors for malpractice.  The norm in America is to remove healthy wisdom teeth that are impacted but this is not the norm in other countries such as Britain.

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Dentists Fight Review Sites

Posted on 10. Apr, 2009 by wisdom.

A new article by the ADA was published a few days ago about dentists fighting online websites where some seek to damage their name. The article can be found at http://www.ada.org/prof/resources/pubs/adanews/adanewsarticle.asp?articleid=3529.

The article focuses on the review site Yelp and how one doctor found terrible ratings of herself online. The doctor went so far as to have her attorney sue the person who posted the rating on the site for libel.

The doctor’s attorney states that “The parameters of the First Amendment weren’t intended to protect defamatory speech. If there were no limits whatsoever, we could charge anyone with anything. We can’t use speech in a way that is intended to hurt someone.”

I personally believe that free speech protects our interests in giving our reviews of doctors, dentists, businesses, whatever you name it. I’m sure if we were to talk to our friends or family about a bad experience at the doctor no lawsuit would likely result. The real issue here seems to be that doctors and dentists are trying to leverage everything that they have to cry that they are not like a business.

I personally think this article is a load of crap and a bunch of B.S. We should be allowed to express our opinions of doctors and businesses for the way that they are. With the emergence of the internet, this information no longer is kept amongst a few individuals who experience the problems and share with a few others. Now it can be posted and displayed for the entire public.This is where the real problem is.

What doctors and businesses what to avoid, and rightfully so, is when people complain and offer reviews that stretch the truth and opinion. This could be in cases where a patient arrives 15 minutes late at the doctor, then the doctor can no longer see them for an hour, and has to cut the appointment short. This could then cause the patient to rate the doctor low and say comments relating to this. I have seen such an example occur in practice.

However, the problem I have with defamation and libel is the fact that sometimes you can say something that makes a factual claim against a business or individual or something that may harm that business or individual or something. Even if the claim is in fact true (it does not have to be false) that person can still be sued for libel. This is what I think needs to be investigated more by the general public so that the laws are changed. As this prevents the truth of speech from being expressed both verbally and in written form. The U.S. prides itself on free speech, but when it comes to negative experiences with doctors, dentists, or businesses, this turns out to not be the case, as if the truth is expressed, a lawsuit for saying the truth can result, even if the truth is factual and correct in statement.

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