Hospitals, clinics and physicians continue to struggle with how to cope with negative online reviews.
The Dallas Morning News recently reported that two North Texas freestanding emergency room operators are asking Google to reveal the identities of nearly two dozen reviewers who rated them poorly online.
Highland Park Emergency Center on Lemmon Avenue and Preston Hollow Emergency Room on Walnut Hill Lane filed a joint petition recently in Dallas County District Court. The 30-page pre-suit deposition lists the screen names used by 22 individuals, who the facilities claim never were treated in their emergency centers, the newspaper reported.
They want Google to share the users' identities and the review site's metadata in order to help with the investigation.
In the petition, Highland Park and Preston Hollow argued that Google reviewers who were never patients, or the guardians of patients, gave them one-star ratings and posted angry comments.
They said the reviews were probably posted by a third party “to defame and disparage” their businesses.
