NEGATIVE REVIEWS
AND THE PROACTIVE
ONLINE PHYSICIAN
O
Dylan J. Chadwick
Physicians Office Resource
Staff Writer
Austin, Denver, New York City and San Diego,
specifically those who had earned the lowest
ratings on Vitals, RateMDs and Yelp. Just more
than half of the posts (53%) were negative.
More precisely though, the study broke down
the major complaints of disgruntled patients
into three basic categories: 43.1% of these
complaints dealt with a physician’s (lack of )
bedside manner, 35.3% of these complaints
cited poor customer service and 21.5%
complained about a physician’s medical skills
and/or surgical mistakes.
The Vanguard study works in tandem with
research published in the Journal of General
Internal Medicine in June 2012, with the
general idea culled from the reviews being
that a physician’s empathy tends to rank
much higher in importance than how
knowledgeable or clinically proficient they are.
Characteristics and circumstances that
traditionally spur negative reviews are when
physicians come off as ego-centric,
condescending or uncaring, when they seem
indifferent or unresponsive to any patient
input or when they get easily frustrated or
agitated at patient inquiries. Now, what
patients might experience as “condescending”
may in fact just be a misinterpretation of the
physician’s demeanor, or perhaps an acute
moment of stress or weakness in an
overwhelming day, but these are the “red
flags” that many patients will take online,
regardless of the circumstances.
Other experiences that sour patients...
urs is a world of empowered
consumers. Whether it’s sloppy
service at the department store,
or a nasty night of foodpoisoning following one too
many bad sushi rolls, customers the world
over (or at least in the states) know that
amidst any unpleasant consumer experience,
they’ve got one final respite to make their
voice heard: a negative online review.
Granted, a visit to the doctor’s office isn’t
exactly the same as a quick trip to the shoe
store, but with more and more patients adopt
the role of “medical consumers” the lines
between the mall and the medical facility, at
least in the eyes of patients, are rapidly
blurring. It shouldn’t come as any surprise
either, that many of the online rating sites
available to shoppers have their
doppelgänger’s in the medical realm like Vitals,
RateMD’s and the near-ubiquitous Yelp.com.
What and Why do
Patients Post Online?
A recent Medscape article (Top Complaints
Posted on Doc Rating Websites) cites the
observation of Ken Hertz, a principal with
MGMA Health Care Consulting, that whether
or not a patient’s complaint is warranted,
what drives them online is the fact that their
complaints can pull results that “they feel they
couldn’t get otherwise.”
Denver-based research company Vanguard
Communications scoured 3617 online reviews
of 300 internists and OB/GYNs practicing in
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