The following is a viral post I came across on r/CrohnsDisease. Take a look for yourself.
My doctor and his network (DHAT) is a fraud, what should I do?
I have a strong belief that my doctor and the other doctors in his network are faking reviews aggressively. I spot shady businesses like this all the time, but it hits close to home when it affects my health and the health of others.
After mild suspicion, I had an assistant of mine spend a couple of hours going through a list of local GI doctors, recording their Google reviews and then grouping them based on whether they were in the same monopolistic network or not.
Here’s some data of my doctor and his local network GI Alliance which includes DHAT (Digestive Health Associates of Texas) and TDDC (Texas Digestive Disease Consultants).
| Person Name | Number of Reviews | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Priya Rangasamy | 131 | 4.7 |
| Vinay Antin | 118 | 4.9 |
| Cherian Abraham | 108 | 4.9 |
| Balu Chandra | 185 | 4.8 |
| Eric Hill | 210 | 4.9 |
| Kevin Ho | 88 | 4.6 |
| Mark Murray | 144 | 4.9 |
| David Hall | 135 | 4.9 |
| Thomas Lyles | 267 | 5 |
| Jeffrey Mills | 142 | 4.9 |
| James Nackley | 256 | 4.7 |
| Bhavin Patel | 1 | 5 |
| Jessica Shah | 222 | 4.9 |
| Andrew Shea | 169 | 4.9 |
| Jay Yepuri | 217 | 4.6 |
| John Baker | N/A | N/A |
| Moustafa Youssef | 145 | 4.8 |
| Vineel Kankanala | 28 | 5 |
| Randal Macurak | 183 | 4.9 |
| Armond G. Schwartz | 155 | 4.9 |
| Prashant Kedia | 275 | 4.8 |
| Walter Young | 44 | 4.8 |
| Paul Tarnasky | 125 | 4.9 |
| Roy Joseph | 185 | 4.8 |
| Robert Anderson | 64 | 4.7 |
| Angela Carollo | 79 | 4.8 |
| Sarita Gayle | 42 | 4.8 |
| Hemangi Kale | 43 | 4.4 |
| Elizabeth Odstrcil | 49 | 4.8 |
| Rushikesh H | 43 | 4.9 |
| Jack An | 42 | 5 |
| Kendall Brown | 81 | 4.9 |
| Lillienne Chan | 48 | 4.7 |
| David Magee | 127 | 4.8 |
| Alexander Mantas | 482 | 4.9 |
| Michael Russo | 201 | 4.9 |
| Noel Snowberger | 119 | 4.6 |
| Annette Whitney | 44 | 4.6 |
| Lisa Alvarez | 122 | 4.9 |
| Sami Arslanlar | 130 | 4.9 |
| James Hakert | 67 | 4.5 |
| Samar Harris | 7 | 5 |
| Viralkumar Patel | 109 | 5 |
| Son Do | 181 | 4.6 |
| Candice Jantz | 150 | 4.8 |
| Adnan S. | 128 | 4.9 |
| Amit Masand | 175 | 4.9 |
| Sindhu Abraham | 255 | 4.9 |
| Stuart Akerman | 397 | 4.9 |
| Kenneth Brown | 430 | 4.8 |
| Matthew Eidem | 373 | 4.8 |
| Arshad Malik | 281 | 4.7 |
| Michael Weisberg | 50 | 4.6 |
| Brent Keith | 57 | 4.9 |
| Kenneth Yang | 309 | 4.9 |
| Virat R. Dave | 580 | 5 |
| Josh O. George | 247 | 5 |
| Kumar Gutta | 263 | 4.9 |
| Brian K. Cooley | 179 | 4.8 |
| AVG | 163.30 | 4.83 |
| MEDIAN | 138.50 | 4.9 |
Here are doctors that are not in DHAT and not in TDDC.
Before gathering this, I noticed some red flags that led me to want to investigate. Background: I’ve worked in digital marketing for more than half my life so I believe I’m better-than-average when it comes to spotting suspicious reviews.
- My doctor has about 400 reviews when other locally recommended doctors average 27, median 9.
- They can get a lot of reviews if they ask every patient for one, but I’ve never been solicited by the doctor to leave a review. This is standard practice for any business looking to improve reviews. Automated texting systems are very popular. I’ve been with the doctor for 3 years so there’s been lots of opportunity to solicit. Not once.
- I recently had another bad experience with him that made me question things, I looked online, and couldn’t believe how minimal complaints were.
- I wrote a 1 or 2-star review (which I since deleted since discovering the bigger picture and rethinking next steps) and no one reached out to rectify it or anything, which is very common for a business who is trying to reach/maintain 4.9 stars
- Furthermore, none of the Google reviews get replies. They likely just buy the reviews and forget about the rest of the picture, because they can be bought on the dark market for $5 a pop.
- 4.8-4.9 stars is relatively unattainable for businesses without a solid flow of happy customers paired with a strong collection via automated flow. Even the best businesses in the world struggle to reach 4.5 stars because it doesn’t take much to get a bad review. People leave bad reviews for businesses because they were having a bad day and that business was just unlucky enough to be apart of it.
Anyways, sorry for the long thread, but what are your guys thoughts? Forget about it and get a new doctor? Should I be reporting this to someone? Google won’t/doesn’t care but I’m wondering about bigger picture entities I should inform like governing agencies.
I just can’t imagine how many people were fooled. It is very difficult to find a GI outside of the monopoly because of how thick their network is, and every GI is boosted with reviews.