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.