FEEDBACK

Question: "A very angry ex-patient has posted terrible things about me on a website called Yelp.com. I know it’s doing damage because several people have called me to commiserate--including colleagues, current patients, and ex-patients. One of them told me he’d recommended me to a friend, but the friend decided against seeing me because of the bad review. I tried Googling my name, and this bad review is the first thing that comes up in the search results--even before my own website. It’s been there for months now, and never seems to go away. Is there any remedy for this?"

Answer: Not exactly. There are strategies that clinicians are using to soften the blow--and we outline them later in this report. But most therapists who run into this situation want to know how they can kill the bad review altogether. The truth is, they usually can’t.

For starters, the website in question, Yelp.com, doesn’t take responsibility for what’s posted there--and legally speaking, they are not required to do so. Yelp hasn’t responded to our queries or, reportedly, to queries from this therapist’s attorney. But another attorney we know, Glennon Karr in Columbus, OH, has been in touch with them. Unfortunately, he says, "They more or less have complete immunity."

"I had a client with the same problem, and I wrote Yelp a letter asking them to remove the negative review--or to tell us who had placed it so we could consider responding with a lawsuit. They wrote back saying no, and citing the case law. They’re right--the law backs them up."

The Yelp response is in the box on page 2. Essentially, it says they won’t remove a bad review unless a judge orders them to do so. Nor will they disclose details about who posted a review unless they get a subpoena--and even then, they add, they’re probably going to fight before giving in.

And unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. "I’ve heard this exact story from several clients," says Christopher Zopatti, a Los Angeles malpractice attorney who works frequently with mental health professionals. In fact, he tells us, he’s known therapists who’ve suffered worse. "This guy has it easy...At least his ex-patient isn’t posting on multiple sites, or starting his own website devoted to defaming the practitioner.

"I’m presently dealing with a patient who is baiting my client to sue them," Zapotti goes on. "That way, they can conduct discovery, and then post private information regarding my client on the Internet."

A lawsuit isn’t a good idea, he concludes. "It could cost you upwards of $100,000 in legal fees to sue them, and most of the time, these people don’t have any money anyway."

What else can you do? In theory, a practitioner could fight fire with fire by posting a response to a patient’s bad review. But that leads to ethical questions you may not want to deal with. David Ballard, assistant executive director for marketing and business development at the American Psychological Association, points out that an explicit response from a therapist would be acknowledging the therapeutic relationship.

If the patient has used a pseudonym or posted anonymously, the therapist might have some room to respond but Ballard still discourages it. "You could end up stepping into quicksand." Additionally, he says, all the professional ethics codes in this field prohibit solicitation of positive reviews from patients or former patients.

APA members are reporting problems like these "occasionally," he adds, "and we expect that we’ll be hearing a lot more about it."

Keely Kolmes, a San Francisco therapist and active web marketer, is the one person we’ve spoken to who offers any hope. First of all, she says, a bad review may not be such a bad thing--if it’s not the only opinion on offer. “There’s some research to suggest that people don’t really believe good reviews if there aren’t one or two negative ones alongside.”

What’s more, she tells us, there are some proactive steps you can take to make things better. Below, Kolmes and Ballard offer 5 tips for dealing with bad web reviews:

1. Take "ownership" of your Yelp page. The site won’t remove bad reviews, but it does give you the opportunity to post info about yourself--to create a professional profile with contact info, a mission statement, etc. You can also include language explaining why you can’t respond directly to bad reviews. You don’t have to pay anything to do that, and your info goes right on top, before any reviews. "I put a statement on my page cautioning people about the problems of leaving reviews," Kolmes says.

2. Start using a client satisfaction survey in your practice, and post the data on your Yelp page, or other site where you’ve been reviewed. "It’s giving people another way of assessing you--rather than relying on the reviews," Kolmes tells us.

3. Ask colleagues and other professionals, with whom you have no confidential relationship, to post positive comments about your practice.

4. Do NOT ask prospective patients to sign a statement agreeing not to post reviews about you. Some physician practices are taking this step, but Ballard tells us it won’t fly. "It’s not enforceable," he says. A better and subtler approach, he feels, is to add language to your intake form "encouraging patients to discuss disagreements in therapy."

5. The closest thing to a real solution, Ballard and Kolmes agree, is to find a way to "bury" bad reviews when someone Googles your name. "If you have no website or social media presence, that bad review is always going to come up prominently," Ballard says. But if there’s enough content about you--articles you’ve written, blog entries, Facebook fan pages, etc.--that bad review can get pushed down in the search results. Most people never look past the first 10 results to a search.

There are a variety of books on that subject, including Me and My Web Shadow: How to Manage Your Reputation Online by Anthony Mayfield, and Wild West 2.0: How to Protect and Restore Your Reputation on the Untamed Social Frontier, by Michael Fertik. Used copies of those are selling for $10 or less on Amazon. And if you’re willing to spend more--a lot more--there are several online services that promise to do the whole job for you. Reputation Defender, www.reputation.com, is one--a Google search will turn up more.

Contacts: 1) David Ballard, APA, Washington, DC, (202)336-5887; 2) Glennon Kerr, Columbus, OH, (614)848-3100, www.karrlaw.com; 3) Keeley Kolmes, San Francisco, CA, (415)501-9098, www.drkkolmes.com (Kolmes wrote an article about her online odyssey in The New York Times back in March--see it here: tinyurl.com/pf0411e); 4) Christopher Zopatti, Los Angeles, CA, (949)261-2872, www.ctsclaw.com.