This site is designed to help patients, doctors, and websites understand the problems created by Medical Justice, a company trying to restrict online patient reviews, and to offer some ways that let patients freely talk about their healthcare experiences.
Medical Justice sells contracts to doctors—we call them “anti-review contracts”— that either expressly prohibit patients’ online reviews or permit patients to post online reviews so long as doctors can remove them whenever they want. In exchange for these restrictions, the contracts promise patients purportedly greater privacy. However, this privacy promise is illusory, and the restrictions these contracts impose on online reviews are a bad deal for patients—and everyone else.
Medical Justice’s efforts may be a sign of things to come. Imagine if other companies used similar contracts. Before you get a haircut, before you buy a six-pack of soda at the local grocery store or before you order a meal at a restaurant, imagine you were required to keep quiet and never post your opinion online about the product or service you purchased. Sound ridiculous? It does to us, and we think it’s no less ridiculous when doctors demand this of their patients.
This site explains why anti-review contracts are bad for doctors, bad for patients and bad for online review websites. We offer practical tips to avoid these contracts. For more information, explore our website or contact us.
[Note: we initially posted this page in 2011. A few months later, Medical Justice “retired” its form. In 2016, Congress enacted the Consumer Review Fairness Act banning anti-review contracts.]