Practice Management Alert

Find out what patients are saying about you on their own time.

If you want to cultivate more of a presence online, figure out which, if any, review sites patients are using to evaluate you or your competition.

Healthcare-Specific Sites:

• ZocDoc: The company offers a website and an app, which allow people to search for a physician by specialty, condition, procedure, doctor name, zip code or city, and insurance type.

Top tip: You can also list your practice on ZocDoc to increase your reach and having a bigger hand in shaping your online presence.

• WebMD: Potential patients can find physicians via name, specialty, condition, procedure, or location, including top metropolitan areas, as well as directories for pharmacies, insurance, and hospitals (and a lot of other information, which has probably affected exam room conversations for physicians for years).
• Healthgrades: People can utilize this website to search physicians, specialty, condition, procedure, or location. There's a new "National Health Index" that spotlights a list of 25 cities that "are getting healthcare right," Healthgrades says on its website.

Top Tip: You can claim a free profile for your practice.

• RateMDs: This website boasts 2.5 million ratings; people can search by physician (name and gender), specialty, and location.

Top Tip: You can claim a "doctor profile" on this site.

• Care Dash: This site is fairly new, meaning you could make an outsize impact on the site if you can manage to establish a presence with more than a couple ratings. People can search via their personal address or zip code, as well as hospital, specialty, provider name, or practice.

Top Tip: You can claim your provider profile on this site.

• Vitals.com: This company offers a free online search tool to connect patients with doctors, as well as a pay platform that provides extra information on how your benefits and care interact, as well as a program employers can buy into to nudge their employees toward "lower-cost, high-quality" choices in their healthcare decisions, according to the Vitals website. The company's two pay platforms offer cash rewards to users as motivation to choose affordable healthcare. The services this company offers are not geared toward providers, but you can still check in on what people are saying about you.

Service-Rating Sites:

• Yelp: People can use this ubiquitous service-ratings site to read (or post) reviews on doctors, as well as restaurants and hair salons. The nonhealthcare-focus means that the search parameters are a little different; by location or payment type or whether a practice sees patients by appointment only.
• Angie's List: This site requires membership but offers users a more in-depth look at services. Their members review doctors and dentists based on "various aspects of care, including availability, office environment, punctuality, staff friendliness, bedside manner, communication, effectiveness of treatment, and billing and administration," according to the Angie's List website.
• Google Reviews: If a potential patient hears about your practice from a friend or finds word of it elsewhere and Googles your practice specifically, your address and hours will pop up, as well as a summary of aggregated reviews on other sites. "You can't only rely on Google reviews anymore, you need to make sure your patients are spreading the love across all the review sites prospective patients might consider,"
• says Jessie Pressman, director of reputation management at People & Practice, a physician-focused digital marketing company in New York City, in a blog post.
• Facebook: Many people spend a lot of time on Facebook, and utilize it for everything word of mouth. You may want to consider establishing a practice business presence here, to make sure patients can find accurate information about your location and hours, as they may look for information here before they look for your website or at review sites. The platform encourages the use of photos and the production of content, so it will be tempting to engage directly with patients. Be very wary of potential landmines via Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) violations.

Don't Forget These Social Media Platforms

Nowadays, people spend a lot of time on their phones, and reach for the tool (and apps) at hand when looking for information, seeking an antidote to boredom, or engaging with friends and family. If you ever get the sinking feeling you're not seeing patients on schedule and that your waiting room is full of frustrated, social-media-savvy people, here's where you can find some confirmation.

Utilize the "search" functions of these websites and apps to find out how your practice comes up in word of mouth (or fingers to internet) conversation. You may need to search by using a hashtag (#) preceding your practice's name, i.e. #RiverCityMedical, to find all of the results.

Note: If you choose to go this route in finding out what people are saying, think of it as a reconnaissance mission only. Other physicians have gotten in big trouble with HIPAA by responding directly, and publicly, on social media or service review sites, to patients' complaints.

• Facebook: Arguably the king of social media sites, and where people spend and expend a lot of mental space. You can search Facebook through simply typing your practice's name into the search bar function or by searching it with a hashtag. People can also leave reviews directly on your practice's business page, if you establish one.
• Twitter: Though people probably won't be reviewing your practice here, they may lash out in frustration or boredom, especially if plagued by long wait times in your office, and all of their followers - and the public at large - may see. Hold your breath and find out how your practice is faring with the search function: don't forget the hashtag.
• Instagram: This photo-sharing app has no review or rating function, but patients may be spending their long wait times connecting with friends and followers here. You can search using a hashtag. You can also establish a profile for your practice, which would allow users to tag you directly. If you choose to establish a profile, keep your photo-taking extremely minimal, possibly confining to only cutesy office decorations.