Doctor's reviews allowed on the internet

OLG verdict: Review of doctors on the Internet lawfully

04/21/2012

Open portals for doctors on the Internet are lawful. This emerges from a recent judgment of the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt. A doctor had sued until the OLG for deletion of an entry in the rating portal Jameda.

The Appellant's claim to the cancellation of her assessment was not followed by the Higher Regional Court (Az. 16 U 125/1), but ruled that the assessment, after weighing the plaintiff's personal rights, was covered by the fundamental right to freedom of expression and information. According to this, physicians must come to terms with the evaluation of their performance on corresponding portals.

Female doctor demanded deletion of her rating
Different Internet portals offer a medical evaluation, which is determined from the comments of the users. Some statutory health insurance funds, such as the Barmer GEK and the AOK or the association of alternative health insurance companies, also provide corresponding offers, which are expressly not intended to serve as a public pillory for doctors, but to serve patients in search of a doctor. The plaintiff, however, did not agree with the nature of the performance evaluation on the internet portal Jameda and therefore went to court against them. The anonymous assessment of her performance on the portal was not reconciled with the special relationship of trust that exists between doctor and patient and, moreover, her personality rights were violated, the doctor had justified her complaint. Since Jameda is not a closed forum, but here everyone can give anonymous an evaluation, there is the risk of manipulation, and even a suspicion on this, the entries must appear unbelievable. A cancellation is therefore urgently required, so the claim of the applicant.

Medical assessment compatible with the personality right
With the demand for deletion of her assessment, the doctor had already failed before the Frankfurt district court and had then chosen the way in front of the Higher Regional Court. But the judges of the Higher Regional Court rejected their request now. The applicant is not entitled to delete the entry on the Ärztebewertungsportal. Even taking into account the personal right of the doctor, the publication of the evaluation by the fundamental right of freedom of expression and information is covered. The argument that this is an incorrect assessment by lay people, the judges held that the right of expression is not limited to universal value judgments by specialists, but also include the statements of laymen. Especially since the users of the portal is aware that no scientifically sound assessment is carried out here. Execution as an open forum, in which anonymous reviews and multiple registrations are possible, is in the view of the judges necessary, since experience has deterred many people from rating as soon as they have to give their name.

Doctors' assessment on open portals prone to manipulation
The OLG did not follow the comparison with the teacher evaluation portal Spickmich, which is less susceptible to manipulation because multiple applications are excluded with an e-mail address. In contrast to physicians, teachers are not active in a closed, delimitable area, so that no limitation of the persons entitled to access is possible here. However, on the basis of the OLG ruling, the allegation that Jameda was susceptible to manipulation can not be entirely refuted. Because the doctor had also argued that doctors could use the portal to make fake reviews advertising their practice. In principle, physicians are advertising that is based on unverified self-assessment, but not allowed, so the plaintiff's position. In addition, those who are not satisfied with the reviews, manipulate them by manipulation and distort their validity. Thus, the positive approach of an independent medical assessment entails quite a few uncertainties that are not adequately discussed in the current verdict. However, deletion of all negative entries would not help the patient either, which is why the operators of the portals in the first place are called on to hedge against manipulation. (Fp)

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