Defending my diagnosis against a patient who was never mine
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.
A long, angry review named specific symptoms and declared that I had "gotten the diagnosis completely wrong and refused to listen."
No patient in my practice matches the account, and the described condition is not something I manage in the way the review claims. The impossible bind is that I cannot publicly say "you were never my patient," because under HIPAA even that statement acknowledges a relationship I would be confirming or denying.
New patient scheduling slowed for a stretch while the review held the top spot, and my front desk started hearing "I saw a bad review" from callers. It is genuinely disorienting to feel your reputation erode over a fiction you cannot even name as a fiction.
I reported it and was left defending my competence against an encounter that, as far as I can document, never took place. I told myself steady, real care would eventually outweigh it, and mostly it has, but the powerlessness stayed with me.