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Dallas free-standing ERs want Google to identify the people behind 22 negative online reviews

October 3, 2019

A Texas court has granted a request from two free-standing emergency rooms to question Google about the identities of more than 20 people who left negative online reviews about the two facilities.

Highland Park Emergency Center and Preston Hollow Emergency Room, both based in Dallas, filed a petition (PDF) in Dallas County District Court last week, requesting permission to depose Google related to the reviews. In the court filing, the two ERs said that 22 negative posts on Google Reviews were from people who likely never received care at either facility.

Both ERs typically follow up negative online reviews by confirming via medical records where the patients were treated and by contacting the patients directly. In the case of these posts, staff could not find records that the patients or guardians or representatives for the patients who posted reviews were seen at Highland Park or Preston Hollow.

The two facilities “believe that the reviewers were contracted or hired by a competitor of Petitioners to intentionally and fraudulently post the false one-star reviews on Google Reviews in order to damage” their reputations and direct business elsewhere, they said in the filing.

Read more: FierceHealthcare

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