What Are Patients Writing About You?
By Karen Zupko
If you don’t know, this could be a problem. In the good old days a dissatisfied patient griped to their spouse, cubicle mate and a few friends—who all countered with their own doctor-tales-from-hell and forgot your name the next day.
Now, the picture has changed. The world has moved online and a dissatisfied or disgruntled patient can get even by blasting you to thousands of people.
Ask your manager, secretary or most tech savvy kid to check you out online at these sites:
www.google.com
And, yes we know Healthgrades is first. Pay for the online rating about you. It’s only $12.00. We did so for a client and we were delighted to find two of the seven doctors rated—all positively.
www.zagat.com
From hamburgers to hand surgeons, they have ratings. Wellpoint partnered with them, so check their insurer’s site to see if you are listed. Ratings are on a 30 point scale and they only post when 10 patients have rated you.
www.mycigna.com
Beneficiaries can get quite a bit of information about you. Make sure it’s accurate. Do the same with the other major carriers with a presence in your market. You might be surprised by what you find.
www.thehealthcarescoop.com
Sponsored by BCBS of Minnesota, this site encourages users to post “their story” and these are not moderated or filtered. There is a rating scale.
www.doctorscorecard.com is sponsored by United Health care. It’s less populated. Patients can make subjective judgments on a 10 point scale.
Obviously, you need to pay attention to negative reviews, but you may find that some sites have very positive ratings. Some groups are considering encouraging happy post op patients to post at particular sites.
Next, look at the physician referral sections of manufacturer’s sites. In our recent group survey, only two of the doctors in the group were listed, despite the fact that all of the doctors use the products produced by this vendor. You never know how your name may come up.
Although patients won’t rate you on sites maintained by your specialty society, it is a good idea to verify that you are listed accurately, as well as your other group members. The same goes for the hospitals with which you are affiliated.
Watch these sites, which are unfiltered, anonymous free-for-alls:
www.yelp.com
www.ratemds.com
Patients today with more personal money at risk are taking the time to check you out and see if they want to “invest” with you.
We recommend having sites checked at least quarterly. Additionally, KZA has recommended for years that practices have their own new patient satisfaction survey. Better that the unhappy patient tells you then the online world. And, you’ll frequently find out about what the practice is also doing well.
The this article comes to you from KarenZupko and Associates, Inc. We welcome your feedback regarding this publication. The Business of Hand Surgery Committee is chaired by Dan Nagle, MD and Lionel Brown, MD.