A Provably False Review Left By A Temp Employee Is Seriously Endangering My Dental Practice. What Should My Next Move Be?

I'm a dentist in Mississippi trying to transition out of this profession. I love helping people, but dentristry is filled with some of the most toxic and frankly evil practitioners you'll ever meet, with very few exceptions. Unfortunately, this post for advice is about just such a situation that started a few days ago.

With my practice selling to a new dentist soon, I needed a temporary assistant to cover my regular assistant going on bereavement leave. My office manager accidentally double-booked me for two assistants with a temp agency. When both assistants showed up for the day, I explained the situation very honestly, took full responsibility for the mixup, and called the temp agency and instructed them to pay both assistants for the full day's work. After talking with the two assistants, I gave one assistant essentially a full day's paid vacation and proceeded to get to work. The "extra" assistant never indicated that she was unhappy with the arrangement -- there literally were no downsides for her. One assistant got a paid workday, the other got a paid vacay day. Important in this situation is that both temp assistants were people of color.

About two hours later, an extremely toxic review was posted to numerous social media platforms. This review stated in no uncertain terms that I was a prejudiced, discriminatory person and gave specific and actionable instructions that only someone who "knows how the system works" would know to report me to the local dental board and called upon all people of all skin colors to pile on "for the sake of change." The review was posted under a different name than either temp assistant, but a quick Googling led me to a Facebook profile, and in the Friends list was the assistant I had given a paid day off. I would like to stress that neither of these people are patients of the practice, and the Facebook friend appears to live in a completely different state. I was witnessed discussing giving the assistant a vacation day and was never in any way racist or prejudiced. The phone call to the temp agency explaining that this was my mistake, and that the assistant should be paid the full day is recorded, as all of our calls are for quality assurance. The review is 100% demonstrably false.

Ordinarily I would have thick skin and chalk this review up to the typical bitterness that pervades dentistry. Unfortunately, this review has already seriously hurt my practice. The dentist planning to buy my practice called me this morning to cancel the sale, as he doesn't want to be connected with a practice that has any air of discriminatory behavior. My practice is in a very proactive and progressive area, and I had a new patient call to cancel their appointment, with the patient specifically saying she was unaware I was so prejudiced. My practice has always relied on word of mouth for new patients, and I can see a dangerous pattern already in the works.

I have reported the review on the platforms I could find but it is unlikely any significant action will be taken. r/legaladvice, what options would you suggest at this point? Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.