"HealthEngine sued for allegedly manipulating reviews of GPs and selling patient details", 8 August 2019

Online healthcare booking platform HealthEngine is being sued over allegedly manipulating patient reviews and ratings and selling private information of over 135,000 patients to private health insurance brokers.

...The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission...has launched legal action against HealthEngine, alleges in court documents that from March 2015, HealthEngine received 128,000 patient reviews and published 50,000 of those reviews.

...HealthEngine provided the brokers with the patient's name, phone number, email address, date or year of birth, appointment time, type of healthcare practice where the booking was made, and whether or not the patient had private health insurance.

...HealthEngine CEO and founder Dr Marcus Tan said in a statement that HealthEngine either discontinued or overhauled the services in question over a year ago.

"HealthEngine recognises that our rapid growth over the years has sometimes outpaced our systems and processes and we sincerely apologise if that has meant we have not always met the high expectations of us," he said.

"We are working hard to rebuild the trust we've lost with patients and practices. Our mission to enable better healthcare experiences and outcomes remains at the heart of everything we do."