Online Reputation Management For Doctors 

Introduction

Did you know that 80% of patients looking for doctors look at Google reviews and ratings and consider the reviews before making an appointment? Whether you are an individual provider or someone who is running a practice, maintaining an online reputation is a must. Keep on reading as we share with you the importance of reputation management for doctors, ways to handle reviews, and the best strategy to automate the process of managing online reputation management for doctors and physicians. 

Importance of Online Reputation Management for Doctors

Builds trust 

These days, patients mainly use the internet to look for doctors before scheduling an appointment. They look at the online reviews and ratings to check the doctor’s reputation and credibility and form their opinions accordingly. Hence, positive reviews and ratings can help you build your credibility and trustworthiness, leading to more patient inflow.  

Improves your Google search rankings

While looking for a doctor online, patients rarely go to the second search result page. A majority of them find a suitable doctor on the first page after looking at the reviews, ratings, and services. Google pushes search results that have the most number of positive reviews and ratings higher. So the more you collect positive reviews, the higher the chance you have of showing up on top of the search results and getting patients. 

Increase new patient appointments 

Now, think of something. A patient looking for a doctor online is most likely to choose which doctor. A doctor that has 10, 5-star rating, or a doctor that has 400, 4-star rating? Obviously, the patient would choose the doctor with more number of reviews. More reviews improve the chances of better online visibility and help in increasing new patient appointments which is the reason why online reputation is so important.    

Build lasting relationships

Another advantage of reputation management for doctors is that by asking your patients to leave reviews, you are giving them a voice to be heard. When you see your patient’s feedback and act on the same, it helps in building lasting relationships with them, leading to continued business from the same patient in the future. 

Facilitate patient engagement

Your loyal patients can also help you in improving your online reputation. Each time one of your loyal patients gives you a visit, you can engage with them post-treatment by sending them a review link and asking them to leave a review on different online platforms. Loyal customers are likely to leave a positive review each time and can become promoters to boost your online reputation. 

How to Boost Online Reputation for Doctors?

1. Automate review requests via channels like SMS, Email, etc. 

The best way to boost the online reputation of doctors is to automate review requests. To get the best output, you must automate requests based on demographics. For example, if you deal with patients above the age of 50, then SMS might be the best review request channel. Alternatively, if your patients are under 50 years of age, then you can utilize email, SMS, or even both to send review requests. This can be done by implementing an online reputation software. 

2. Give patients the option to leave you feedback & improve

Always give your patients the option to leave you feedback. There are three advantages of this: one is that it makes the patient feel heard and improves the patient experience. The second is that it allows you to gather online reviews, which is very important to gain more patients and to distinguish yourself online. And the third is that it gives you room to implement your patient’s feedback and improve your services for the future. 

3. Act on feedback with tasks/tickets 

There are multiple reviews pouring in every day, and it can be very difficult to manage and reply to those. But there is no way you can ignore or forget online reviews, especially the negative ones. Having a ticketing system, in such a case, that allows you to create a task for your team can do wonders. They can see all the urgent reviews that need to be dealt with and reply, without worrying about them getting lost in the pool of so many reviews. Thus, ensuring your online reputation is maintained at all times.

4. Give patients multiple channels to leave reviews 

Let’s say one of your patients has already left a review before on Google, and they give you a visit again. Should you miss out on getting a review from this loyal customer this time? Not at all! Focus on getting reviews from not just google, but multiple review channels by sending review invites via SMS. You can do this in two ways:  

Provider-specific channels

You can ask your patients to leave reviews for the doctor they have availed the treatment from on provider-specific sites like:

WebMD

Healthgrades

Practice-specific channels

Or you can ask them to leave a review for the clinic or facility they have received the treatment from by directing them to practice-specific sites like:

Google

Facebook

Yelp

How can you get reviews on multiple channels from the same patient? 

To get reviews on multiple channels from the same patient, you simply need to have a system or software in place that identifies that you have collected reviews for a certain site from a patient before, and the next time when they visit, it should be able to send them a review link for an alternate site. Emitrr is one such software that is building this advanced capability and is a worthy option to consider if you are looking to automate reputation management for Doctors. 

How to Handle Reviews? 

Responding to reviews is essential to build an online reputation and trust among existing and potential patients. We often tend to forget to reply to positive reviews and focus only on the negative ones. However, remember that it is important to reply to both kinds of reviews to show that you care. Here are some tips that you can use to respond to both positive and negative reviews: 

Positive reviews

• Express gratitude: Always express gratitude to your patient who has given their time to leave a positive review for you. A short “Thank you for your feedback” can do the job. 
• Keep your replies HIPAA compliant: Because of HIPAA, there is a limit to how doctors can reply to patient feedback. Avoid using the patient’s name or mentioning their health condition in your response. The patient may use their first name and can talk about the treatment however, as a doctor using the patient’s PHI comes under HIPAA violation. 
• Invite the patient back: Ending your reply with “We look forward to supporting you in the future” can help the patient remember you for their future treatments. 
• Share the review with your staff: If the patient shares a positive reply for a certain doctor or staff member, then your response can be, “I will pass along your appreciation for [Provider’s name]; he will be happy to hear.” You can then share such reviews with your team to boost their morale. 

Negative reviews

It may be quite a challenge to deal with negative reviews, however it is important to deal with them patiently, or else your online reputation may take a hit. Here’s what you can do to handle this: 

• Acknowledge the feedback: Even if you do not agree with the negative feedback of your patient, take ownership and try to empathize with the patient’s experience. Avoid deflecting blame by using sentences like, “We are sorry to hear this.” 
• Be proactive, not reactive: A patient who had a poor experience with you will leave a negative review soon after leaving your clinic. Do not ignore their review instead, be proactive and acknowledge your mistake with patience. Not replying to such reviews may seem like you don’t care and make the job even worse for you. 
• Do not let negative online review responses linger: Negative reviews are an inevitable part of any business, and sometimes, no matter what you do, the negative review will still remain as it is. In such a case, you can bury the negative review by garnering more positive reviews, which can be done only by prompting your patients to leave a review. You can automate this process very easily by using software like Emitrr. 
• Offer to resolve the issue offline: After resolving the issue online, give your patient a way to discuss the issue offline by sharing your email or phone number. This step can be very useful, especially if the issue involves sensitive patient information. 

Why Responding is Important for Google?

Responding to reviews is not limited to showing your patients that you care but is also very important from Google’s perspective. Search engines tend to favor practices that have a high rating and that interact with their patients, as such, online reviews are one of the key factors in determining your ranking in search results. 

Use AI Templates

If replying or conversing with so many patients online seems like a time-consuming task, then you can take the help of AI templates and customize them a little to make the process a bit simpler for yourself.  

Common Pitfalls to Avoid 

Overlooking Small Review Sites

Everyone has a go-to review site. While some prefer Google, others prefer Yelp, Facebook, etc., to check online reviews. However, there are also patients who check reviews on multiple sites to corroborate information. Doctors who ignore small review sites or list themselves on just one or two review sites lose out on a substantial patient base. This is why it is crucial to maintain your online presence on multiple review sites. 

Engaging in Arguments Online with Patients

It is natural to get upset or defensive when reading a negative review; however, how you react to negative reviews can impact your online reputation greatly. Avoid getting into arguments or responding in a negative way. Instead, apologize if needed and try to come up with a solution to make things right. Always respond with kindness and professionalism to show commitment towards your work, and you will always stay on top. 

Ignoring the Power of Local SEO for Doctors

When looking for a doctor, patients make a “ doctors near me” search, so if you are not optimizing your listing for local SEO, then you have no idea how many potential patients you are losing out on. Make sure to get your Google listing and website locally SEO optimized so that you do not miss out on the patients near you who may be looking for the treatment you offer. 

Neglecting Updates on Medical Certifications or Achievements

Share updates on your medical certifications and achievements, as this can help you build trust and credibility online and help you get more patients. You can either update this information on review sites or on your social media channels as well.  

Underestimating the Importance of Personalized Responses

Your patients want to be heard, especially when they have something important to say. So when they leave a review, be sure to always reply with a personalized response. This is especially important when dealing with an angry patient. Copying and pasting the same response is likely to irk the patient even more. Make sure to personalize your response by addressing the concern of the patient, and you will be good. 

How a Reputation Management System Can Help Boost Online Reputation for Doctors? 

Reputation management involves sending review requests, collecting feedback, replying to reviews, keeping track of reviews, and whatnot. Doing all this manually can take up a lot of time, thankfully, you can automate all of this using a reputation management system. Here’s how a reputation management system can help boost online reputation: 

Automate the entire process of collecting and responding to reviews 

A reputation management software for doctors can allow you to automate the entire process of sending review links to patients automatically post-treatment. And the best way to do this is via SMS. SMS has an open rate of 98%, so if you start sending review requests via SMS, then there is a high chance that your patient will open the message and leave a review.  

Integrate with PMS to send automated review requests to patients

Reputation management software like Emitrr can integrate with your existing PMS, identify and pull out patient information and send automated review requests via SMS to them automatically post-treatment. This handy feature can allow you to save so much time and focus on other aspects of patient care.

Bring all reviews from different platforms

Imagine keeping a check of reviews on different review sites individually. That ought to confuse anyone! Thankfully, reputation management tools can help you bring all reviews from different platforms, such as Google, Yelp, Facebook, etc., in one place. You can easily view reviews on different sites, track them, and reply to them with ease.

Collect reviews smartly from the same patient on different platforms 

A reputation management tool can identify patients who have left reviews on a certain review site before and send them a review link for a different review platform the next time they visit, and so on. This feature can allow you to garner positive reviews from loyal patients who keep coming back to you.

Monitor reviews effectively 

Reputation management software can send you alerts or notifications every time someone leaves feedback for you on any site be it Yelp, Google, etc. This can allow you to monitor reviews effectively and respond to them quickly ensuring that your online reputation remains good. 

Use review request templates

Last but not least, using reputation management you can send personalized responses to your patients without needing to type an entire message from scratch. Such tools come with a number of review request templates that you can use and customize before sending them to your patients. 

How to Improve Online Reputation Using Emitrr?

To generate more reviews for your practice, you can use Emitrr’s text review request features. Here’s how:

1. Go to Emitrr’s dashboard and click on “send” option. Now navigate to the “review request” option and click on that.

2. Now enter the contact(s) to whom you wish to send the review request. ((Labeled 1 in the image)

3. If you add more than one recipient, then you will see a prompt to either send a group text or a mass text. (Labeled 2)

4. Add the Group/List name (Labeled 3)

5. Upon adding the list, the message box will be automatically filled with a review template. You can either continue with it or choose another template from the options. (Labeled 4)

6. Now, schedule the message for later or send it immediately.  

Why Emitrr is the Best Software for Improving Online Reputation?

Send automated review requests to patients via SMS

SMS has an open rate of 98%, and Emitrr allows you to send automated review requests to your patients via SMS right after they have received their treatment from you. The automation ensures you are able to collect reviews without spending too much time or money on this important task.   

Track & improve reviews from review sites such as Google, Yelp, FB, etc.

Emitrr allows you to track your online reviews from different platforms such as Google, Yelp, Facebook, BBB, etc. in one single place. It gives you the option to filter out reviews based on the platform, date, rating, etc., and reply to them using manual or template replies. 

Set up an automated review response system

Using Emitrr you can also set up automated responses to reviews depending on whether they are negative or positive as shown below:

Get notified upon receiving reviews

Negative reviews can damage your online reputation pretty badly if you do not act on them quickly. Thankfully, Emitrr notifies you every time your patient leaves a review on multiple sites so that you can act on them quickly and protect your online reputation from getting damaged. 

Filter & monitor reviews based on review source, rating and location

Using Emitrr you can sort the reviews left by patients based on the source of review, rating, or location to easily track, manage, and reply to them. 

Integrate with PMS to automate review requests

Emitrr can seamlessly integrate with your PMS, EHR, and EMR software to pull our patient information from the existing database and use it to automate review requests. This can save your front office staff a lot of time that may have gone wasted if they had to send review requests to all patients one by one. 

Use review SMS templates to send requests instantly 

Using Emitrr even if your staff wants to send review request SMS to patients manually, they can do so easily by choosing from a variety of pre-existing review SMS templates, instead of writing the same thing again and again. 

Communicate with patients via two-way texting 

Lastly, using Emitrr, you can also communicate with your patients easily via two-way texting and take the conversation further offline in case any issues arise. 

Case study

A multi-specialty medical practice, Pinnacle Medical Group saw a 3X surge in their online 

reviews when they started using Emitrr.

Using Emitrr’s automatic review request feature, they were able to garner over 90 reviews within three days and improve their ratings at all locations. Not only this, Emitrr helped them effectively respond to negative reviews and improve their online reputation, thus retaining patients. Overall, there was 3x growth in online reviews for Pinnacle Medical Group, elevating the patient experience.

Check it out for yourself: https://emitrr.com/customer-stories/pinnacle-medical-group/ 

FAQs