Doctors and dentists trying to get patients to sign "mutual privacy agreements"

[thewayne]

Basically it's an agreement that you won't write anything on Yelp or other review sites. An Ars Technica writer went to a dentist for some standard work, he found this particular doctor via Yelp. When he went in and started signing paperwork, he noticed one that would "transfer ownership of any public commentary I might write in the future to Dr. Cirka". He got into a discussion with the office manager who wouldn't let him talk to the doctor and ultimately he was shown the door.

Doctors are getting these forms from a company called Medical Template. According to the document, if you sign it, the doctor won't use a loophole in the HIPAA agreement that allegedly allows them to sell certain information to medical marketers. However, that particular loophole was closed, so the agreement actually offers nothing for the patient. It's arguable whether or not you can sign away your right to free speech and to complain about services received, so the document is on questionable grounds to start with. Plus, if someone doesn't go to the doctor and still posts negative reviews on review sites, the agreement can't do anything to prevent that because they never signed it in the first place.

Pretty stupid idea if you ask me.

Still, I wouldn't sign one and wouldn't use a doctor that required me to sign it as a condition of treatment (bringing into the question the point about signing under duress). I fired two doctors in Las Cruces over my treatment and though I haven't complained about them on Yelp or other such sites, I have considered it and may yet.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/all-your-reviews-are-belong-to-us-medical-justice-vs-patient-free-speech.ars

Comments

[droewyn.livejournal.com]

This will almost certainly bite them in the butt in the end. If I wound up not being treated because I refused to sign their form, I would *definitely* be warning others about that practice on all the internets I could find.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Those are my thoughts exactly. The company producing these forms would seem to be a bit on the shady side, at least that's the impression that I got from the article.

[droewyn.livejournal.com]

I passed this article along to my dad. He works for a small hearing aid company, and his boss is exactly the sort of tight-fisted asshole moron nah, I like asshole better who would think this is a good idea.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

That is truly sad.

[silveradept]

Looks like someone's been taking lessons from media cabals and software license writers, in both form and effectiveness.