This community has a reputation for integrity because we uphold and defend the right of hair loss sufferers to express their genuine opinions and experiences, while holding physicians accountable for their actions.

However those who post must also be held accountable for their statements and actions so that our community is fair and just for all parties – both patients and physicians. Thus when a poster makes an anonymous complaint about a physician it is only fair that the physician be given the opportunity to respond to such a compliant.

However, current HIPAA medical laws restrict doctors from responding without the necessary permission provided by the patient. In addition, a forum member’s anonymity often prevents a surgeon from knowing who the patient is and responding at all.

Thus, in the interest of fairness, there may be times that we contact a poster and ask them to provide us with information to substantiate that they are a patient as stated. This may include the poster’s full name, date of surgery, photos, and other documentation. This information will be obtained privately and a member’s right to confidentiality on the forum will be protected. This information may then potentially be provided to the surgeon at our discretion so that the doctor may properly respond to the concern. The patient may also be asked to give the physician formal permission to discuss the particulars of their case.

We also ask that patients contact their physician to resolve their concerns in private before they post their concerns on our forum.

If the claims made by the poster do not prove to be genuine or are motivated by any attempt at coercion, we will make a statement to this effect on the topic where the poster has made such claims. Once our community has had an opportunity to view this update and for the public record to be set straight, we then consider archiving the post so that it can no longer be found or read.

As members of this community, we all need to do our best to assure that parties with ulterior motives do not use our forum for their unfair agendas. Just as physicians and web publishers must be accountable to high standards, so must those who have posting privileges on our forum.

We believe that it is best to take a case by case approach to each and every controversy as it arises. However, ultimately we as the moderators of the forum can’t realistically be the final arbiters of “truth”. We believe our role as the publishers should be to do what we realistically can to make our forum an even and fair playing field for all participants.

However, our attorney has often suggested that we not intervene at all in third party disputes since the Communications Decency Act of (CDA) makes it clear that web publisher and forum hosts are not liable for the statements made by others on their forum (see below).

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act - "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider". Effectively, this section immunizes ISPs and other service providers from torts committed by users over their systems, even if the provider fails to take action after actual notice.

However, while we are not required by law to intervene, we often have intervened in the interest of fairness.

Like the world at large, our community is never completely free from controversy and dissenting opinions. Believe us when we say that we wish it were as such issues can be very exhausting.

However, we are committed to balancing our hard earned reputation for running a fair and open forum with the need to assure that patients are free to share genuine experiences and physicians are not unfairly maligned on our community.

Onwards and Upwards,

Pat and Bill - Publisher and Associate Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network Community