Doc sues Web-savvy ex-patient

A former patient of local plastic surgeon Dr. Barry Eppley says he has made her life hell the past
eight years. Eppley, in a recent lawsuit, says much the same about her.

The patient, Lucille Iacovelli,
has posted a steady stream of videos and caustic comments on Web sites about a face-lift surgery Eppley
performed on her in 2001. Ever since, the Massachusetts resident says, she has had extreme difficulty breathing, making
her homebound, pained and impoverished.

The Web campaign has cost Eppley significant business, he complained when he sued Iacovelli for defamation and loss of business
March 30. Eppley has practicing privileges and rents space at the Clarian Health hospitals in Carmel and Avon and co-owns
the Ology spas in those facilities.

The lawsuit, pending in federal court in Indianapolis, already has turned nasty. Iacovelli accused Eppley’s attorneys of pulling
a "legal stunt" by fabricating a suicide threat from her and then notifying the Massachusetts Department of Mental
Health. It sent police March 31 to take Iacovelli to a hospital.

Friends of Iacovelli have launched new Web sites criticizing Eppley, Clarian and even the U.S.
District judge on the case, Sarah Evans Barker.

It’s a sign of the times. Doctors are beginning to realize what most corporations have over the
last decade: that business reputations are won and lost on the Internet.

There are now at least three dozen Web sites inviting patient reviews of doctors, and patients
have embraced the offer. Doctors are beginning to respond in kind or in court.

"We are seeing more and more of this,"
said Kent Smith, a medical litigation attorney at Hall Render Killian Heath & Lyman in Indianapolis.

Lawsuits are one strategy to stop patients from
commenting online. Other doctors have tried to pre-empt nasty comments by asking patients to sign a contract
promising not to post comments about them online unless the doctor first agrees.

Other doctors haven’t tried to stop online comments, but have instead joined in. In 2008, the
71-physician OrthoIndy practice started its own sites on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, putting out information
about itself but also opening itself to more online comments from patients.

"It’s very scary for any business to think,
‘Oh, we may get a negative comment on that,’" said Kasey Peterson, OrthoIndy’s manager of public
relations and communications, who initiated and oversees the sites.

Peterson monitors any online comments, especially negative ones, and forwards them to various
OrthoIndy departments for follow-up.

"It’s a way to find out what might not be working and fix it," she said.

OrthoIndy’s approach lines up with much of the
counsel publicist Myra Borshoff Cook gives her clients. Helping them manage their reputations online
has been an increasing focus of her firm, Borshoff, in recent years.

"You need to be sure that there are pressure valves in your system that check these things
… before they escalate," Cook said. "To have something linger for this long; how can you
go back and repair it after eight years?"

Online campaign

Eppley, 53, did respond to Iacovelli’s complaints—but not to her satisfaction. According
to a March 2002 e-mail posted on Iacovelli’s Web site, losingface.net, Eppley expressed concern for her
pain but said because of her behavior after the surgery, he would no longer treat her.

"Your overall behavior as
a patient has been unacceptable. While I have a great obligation to any patient that I put through
surgery, patients also have some responsibility to act in a rational manner. Your behavior since the
inception of surgery has been, to say the least, bizarre and irrational," Eppley wrote.

Iacovelli, 59, called Eppley’s response a bunch
of "lies." In a document sent to Judge Barker, Iacovelli said her comments are not defamatory
but part of an "educational campaign."

On a Google search for "Barry Eppley," his Web site, eppleyplasticsurgery.com, comes up
first. But coming up second, third and fourth are Iacovelli’s comments on TheSqueakyWheel.com, her comments
on complaintsboard.com, and then her videos on YouTube.

The videos have attracted more than 280,000 views and Iacovelli’s personal Web site has more than
100,000 hits.

Eppley and
his business partner both appealed to TheSqueakyWheel.com to remove Iacovelli’s comments, but the site’s manager
refused.

"We are
not dealing with a sane nor rational individual. This is a psychotic patient who has spent the past 7 years defaming
me on the Internet without any basis of fact," Eppley wrote in an e-mail filed in court by Iacovelli. Eppley declined
to be interviewed for this story.

In his lawsuit, Eppley complained that Iacovelli’s Web campaign was scaring away patients. One
lost patient can cost Eppley thousands of dollars. His Web site is promoting silicone breast augmentations
at a "Tax Time Special" price of $5,999.

"Patients and potential patients, accordingly, regularly and routinely conduct Internet searches
to gather information" about plastic surgeons, Eppley’s attorney Todd Richardson wrote in his lawsuit.
"As a consequence [of Iacovelli’s Internet postings], Dr. Eppley has suffered substantial business
losses."

Suicide
threat

The
spark that launched Eppley’s lawsuit was an electronic message he says he received from Iacovelli March
18, promising to commit suicide live on the Internet on April 18—the eighth anniversary
of her face-lift surgery with Eppley.

Eppley said he received subsequent electronic messages from Iacovelli counting
down the days until April 18.

The day after Eppley’s attorney filed those messages in court, police and emergency medical staff in
Massachusetts took Iacovelli from her house to Cape Cod Hospital. Iacovelli said she was examined
by a social worker and then a doctor, over 24 hours, before both concluded she was not suicidal and sent
her home.

Iacovelli insists
she never sent the e-mails threatening suicide. Instead, she claims Eppley and his business partner fabricated
them.

"This message
appears to be sent via the form on Eppley’s Web site, where anyone could have entered my email address," Iacovelli
wrote in an e-mail to IBJ. She added, "I do not and have never said or written that I plan to commit suicide
on April 18."

Iacovelli has pointedly accused Eppley of malpractice on her Web site, but she has
never initiated a formal malpractice case against him. Like many doctors, Eppley has been accused of
malpractice multiple times. A medical review panel found him guilty of it once, during a May 2001 oral
surgery, for which his insurance company had to pay $187,001 in damages.

When asked why she hasn’t filed a formal complaint, Iacovelli wrote, "It
is nearly impossible to find a lawyer willing to handle cases involving cosmetic
procedures."

Barker
has issued a temporary restraining order against Iacovelli and her friends, barring her from posting additional comments
about Eppley online. Barker will decide whether to continue that injunction for the duration of the litigation at a hearing
April 17.

Barker sits
on the board of Clarian Health, a not-for-profit hospital system based in Indianapolis. Clarian is the largest
investor in the for-profit hospitals at which Eppley practices, but those hospitals have their own boards and Barker is not
on them.