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Comment by leeter | Hacker News Reader

Reviews are protected speech, this has been litigated multiple times and has precedent in the US. If you live in an area with a SLAPP law I would suggest getting an attorney to file a SLAPP motion for you. The onus is then on the plaintiff to prove they aren't suing you to stifle your speech. If they can't then they have to pay full court costs and your attorney's fees as well as a penalty in many jurisdictions.

In this case the subject is in NY state which has an Anti-SLAPP law and she should apply it and HIPAA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...

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That's fine but they don't have to pay until after the case and appeals. Meaning you have to be able to front the litigation costs in order to have a chance at recovering them. There is a non-zero risk of losing.

I would suggest using a pseudonym and VPN for any review written on a potentially litigious business unless you have the funds to litigate. Problem is Yelp is much more likely to mark the review as spam.

What if you win but they immediately go bankrupt and cannot pay you back?

Courts have a tendency to look on this as criminal contempt and refer the lawyer and the client to the various AGs when this happens.

They can go bankrupt the second judge handles verdict, but this would definitely be out of scope of said person bankrupcy proceedings similar to your education loan cannot be included into bankrupcy. the judge proceeding in bankrupcy claim will clearly see whats this is about.

Physicians with their own practices might have low net worths, but they still have lots of assets to distribute in case of bankruptcy. IANAL, but a patient with a judgement would jump ahead of lots of creditors in such an event.

Many lawyers will take anti-slapp cases on contingency so you don't have to pay up front either

> "They posted my entire medical record, including notes about my mental health, my bills, my insurance info, my driver’s license, birth date and home address,"

We are hearing one side of the story here. HIPAA violations have teeth -- potentially 10 years imprisonment for intentional leaks for personal gain -- so a vindictive public action is highly unlikely, and certainly some lawyers would take the case on spec. Especially if personal information like driver's license info and home address were leaked.

What likely happened is this quip triggered the mess:

> “I suspect that this doctor gives unnecessary procedure [sic] to a lot of people and then charges the insurance sky high prices and no one knows the difference.

Levine is accusing Song of health care and medical insurance fraud. While there's some ambiguity regarding "unnecessary procedures", insurance fraud is a crime and arguably Levine is accusing Song of criminal behavior

Another user, Siphor, went through the documents in a response on another thread [0]. I think the second paragraph adds some important context, especially in regards to the accusations of Mr. Song committing insurance fraud.

>The most damning thing in there was that the Doctor tested for HHV-6 (something 100% of humans have) and then charged for it and claimed it was HHV-2 (genital herpes). Theres apparently a lab technician available to testify that the Doctor commonly tests for HHV-6. Guy seems sleazy.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17182181

what's the point of ordering a nonsense lab test? Is a HHV-6 test significantly cheaper than one for HHV-2?

Order a test that comes back almost 100% positive then claim it was another test which requires treatment which generates a profit.

Ok, that's a more extreme form of malpractice than I had in mind. If true, this guy should never practice medicine again.

That's not entirely correct. There are 2 different forms of HHV6. HHV6B is present in almost 100% of the population[1] (but not quite 100%). HHV6A is less frequent in Japan, North America, and Europe. It can also cause problems for infants when they first acquire it. From the same link:

>HHV-6 primary infections account for up to 20% of infant emergency room visits for fever in the United States

The test can be used to assess viral load, which may indicate other issues, I'm told. (I'm not a doctor, though.) If you have a very high viral load of HHV6, it may indicate something else is going on. However, that doesn't mean it was necessary in this patient's case. But the test exists for legitimate reasons.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_herpesvirus_6#Epidemiolo...

Protected or not, the defendant still have many out of pocket cost and distress for defending a lawsuit. Lawyers don’t care. They will get pay. The judge usually don’t read the case until the time of the trial but your expenses is up front and no guarantees of outcome.

I was sued and I pro-se to defend myself. Although the plaintiffs know the lawsuit is frivolous but that doesn’t matter. He said if I don’t apologize and I win the case, he will just spend more money appeal the case and make my life miserable. I apologized and he dismissed the case.

It probably caused him some money, but it had caused me a lot of distress and time reading up the laws.

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