Patient Satisfaction_Insight Marketing Group_Marketing for Medical PracticesHow often do you have to deal with a review on physician rating sites?

Many practices have to investigate a negative review occasionally for their providers; but is it something really worth paying attention to?

Here’s an article from the Washington Post discussing physician rating websites and the fact that sites like these are a growing trend. Even Consumer Reports is getting into the rating business and is reported to have signed on to partner with Massachusetts Health Quality Partners (they’ve been doing something similar since 2006) to rate 487 primary care physicians in Massachusetts.

The article is interesting and worth a read. Also worth a few minutes of your time is the survey the article references where more than 386,000 physician ratings were analyzed and indicated that for the most part, docs get pretty good ratings (nearly 4 out of 5 stars). In all, over 250,000 physicians have been rated on RateMD.com alone.

What the article does not discuss is how these ratings effect your practice. The fact is that these ratings show up in your search results. Since your potential patients go online before scheduling an appointment, you really need to pay attention to this growing trend.

Why do physician rating websites matter to you?

  • More than 92% of buyers regularly check reviews online before making a purchase or service decision.
  • 75% of searches don’t go past the first page of Google and these ratings often show up above all else.
  • 80% of shoppers change their purchase decisions based on negative reviews.
  • More than 100 million people choose Healthgrades.com to determine who their physician will be – and that number is growing.
  • Searching for healthcare information is the 3rd most common online activity.

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