At first glance, the homepage for Philip Leggett, M.D., appeared unremarkable. Visitors were greeted with stock photos of smiling faces in a banner across the top; Leggett's credentials as a respected laparoendoscopic surgeon were in bold type.
But closer examination revealed something curious: the patient reviews. "My husband went into surgery to have his appendix removed. … he died two days later," read one. Another: "Dr. Leggett and his staff strongly believe that the best physician-patient relationships are based on mutual respect and trust. That is, until we perform your surgery, after which we just dump you in the streets like a black baby in a dumpster."
One patient of Leggett's found this to be a curious way to attract business and asked about it during an appointment. "You've got a problem with your site," the man said. Leggett saw what was going on and quickly contacted authorities in Harris County, Texas.
"It was a case of online impersonation, which is illegal in Texas," says Lt. Gary Spurger, of Harris County's High Tech Crimes Unit. "It looked almost identical to his real site, but it was not complimentary of the doctor. At all."
Lt. Spurger traced the source IP, which led to the home of web designer Vector Thorn. Thorn, who had legally changed his name to sound like something out of a James Bond movie for reasons unknown, had obtained the URL within a week of having a procedure performed by Leggett in September 2012. He didn't populate the site with fake reviews until June 2013.
Thorn was charged with a third-degree felony and released on bond. When asked by Spurger why he waited almost a year to do something, Thorn had no good answer. But Spurger knew the motive: "He wanted more narcotics."
There is certainly nothing new or novel about people being mean to one another on the internet. But health care occupies a unique space amid critiques of restaurant appetizers and roofers: Because the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 prevents doctors from discussing patients, disgruntled and anonymous individuals can pick fights over their quality of medical care with little chance of being successfully hit back, leaving physicians almost powerless to defend themselves. In some instances, aggravated patients use that advantage to mount calculated attacks with the intention of inflicting irreparable damage to careers and reputations. In the life-and-death world of health care, a disgruntled few could impact the medical decisions of thousands already struggling to make sense of new marketplace mandates and regulations.
"I would say the internet has not yet matured to the point where there's a way of easily understanding the difference between an allegation that has some merit and an allegation that's simply someone venting who has an axe to grind," says Gary Nissenbaum, an attorney specializing in commercial litigation. "It's very hard to tell the two apart."
More ...
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jakerossen/insult-and-injury-inside-the-webs-one-sided-war-on-doctors?
