A fake review claimed I sedated a patient without consent and lost track of them
This account was submitted by a healthcare provider and de-identified before publication. Details that could identify a patient or practice have been removed, and it is shared with the provider’s consent.
The Google review described a terrifying scenario involving sedation gone wrong. It claimed I had administered sedation without proper consent and left the patient unmonitored. The reviewer said they woke up alone and disoriented in the chair. It accused my staff of being absent during the procedure. The account had been created that week and had no other reviews. The described sedation protocol did not match anything my office offers. The details were dramatic but clinically inconsistent.
My practice follows strict sedation protocols with continuous monitoring and documented informed consent. A patient is never left alone under sedation, and every case is charted minute by minute. The scenario in the review is not merely absent from my records, it is inconsistent with how the office physically operates. I cannot say any of this publicly, because addressing a specific patient's care, even to deny it, breaches confidentiality. HIPAA does not distinguish between defending against truth and defending against fiction. The reviewer's clinical inaccuracies convinced me the account was never a patient. That conviction is not something I am permitted to share online.
Sedation carries an inherent fear for many patients, and this review preyed on it. Prospective patients called asking whether sedation at my office was safe. I found the accusation genuinely distressing, because patient safety is the line I will never cross. My anxiety spiked every time the phone rang with a sedation question. The team felt the accusation as a group, since sedation is a coordinated effort. My reputation for careful, safe sedation was the thing I was proudest of. Watching it questioned by a fabrication was a particular kind of pain.
I reported the review to Google as a fabricated safety allegation. The initial report was rejected as not violating policy. I submitted a detailed follow-up noting the clinical inconsistencies and the new account. After a few weeks and a second submission, Google removed the review. I also consulted a healthcare attorney about the sedation-safety claims specifically. She confirmed that any public response naming the procedure risked a violation. Her recommendation was documentation, patience, and silence, which I reluctantly accepted.