The longterm difference seems pretty minimal to me: they google his name and see reviews accusing him of fraud or they google his name and see tabloid articles about this story that say the same thing the reviews did, but add that the person making the accusations was sued for libel, alongside followup reports that the court decided the woman was lying. In the second case, the bad reports jump out more, but they're accompanied with notes that a court decided they were false, whereas with your Yelp responses the doctor wasn't even denying them. I don't think your approach is obviously better for the doctor when someone's looking up reviews of him in 5 years.
