DoctorxDentist culls at least 9,700 doctors' names from its platform

Singapore

DOCTORXDENTIST, a medical-review and consumer-education Web site, has removed the profiles of at least 9,700 doctors after regulatory and industry bodies criticised the startup and said they may take legal action.

Checks by The Business Times as at 4pm on Tuesday found that the site now lists about 300 doctors. BT understands that this is still not the final number of doctors who will be listed on the platform, given that the startup is still revamping its directory.

Those who remain on the site are paying doctors, contributors and doctors who have opted to have their profiles on the platform, said DoctorxDentist's general manager Tyr Ding.

At least 4,700 doctors in private practice have been delisted since Saturday, she told BT. The rest of those who were delisted are practising in public hospitals; their names were removed after a closed-door meeting on Nov 13 with the Ministry of Health (MOH), the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) and the Singapore Medical Association (SMA), she added.

The final list of medical practitioners on DoctorxDentist's platform is likely to be confirmed only in two weeks, after the startup verifies the names of doctors who want to opt in against its database.

The company removed the profiles of most doctors on the platform using "an algorithm that keeps doctors conservatively", and is now manually relisting doctors who are supposed to be on the platform, said Ms Ding.

Doctor profiles that were removed include those on a list that the SMA published on Saturday, she said. The list, which the SMA began compiling on Nov 3, comprised more than 1,100 doctors who do not wish to be associated with DoctorxDentist.

On Saturday night, the MOH issued a circular that said that the SMC is "presently exploring avenues of legal recourse" against the platform for having failed to meet demands made by the ministry and the SMC.

The startup had not fully removed the details of doctors from its platform by Friday. The SMC charged that details like the names of the doctors' practices and area of specialty had been lifted from its Web site without written permission.

DoctorxDentist has also yet to publish a clarification on its Web site that the MOH has not endorsed its platform. MOH had given the startup until Nov 17 to do so.

It is unclear whether the SMC is still considering legal action, with the startup having begun to delist doctor profiles. BT has reached out to the SMC for comment.

Following complaints from doctors about the lack of transparency on the platform regarding which doctors were paying the startup and which were not, Ms Ding said the company will set up "more stringent processes" to address the issue.

"As a young startup, we have been so excited about putting information about healthcare for our patients that we skipped a few steps. Part of the vetting process now is to engage all bodies, stakeholders and patients in the process," she said.

DoctorxDentist earns revenue from creating content with medical practitioners and brands, which it publishes on its Web site. The content is meant to be optimised for search engines. Subscription plans for such search-optimisation services range from S$3,000 to S$5,500 a month, and users are locked in for at least six months, sources told BT.

Advertisements and fee payments to third-party platforms are sensitive issues in the medical industry. Practitioners have to follow strict guidelines under the SMC's ethical code and the Private Hospitals & Medical Clinics (PHMC) (Advertisement) Regulations.