No one likes to be reviewed. But in the 2020s, almost everyone is being reviewed. It started with ecommerce for retail goods. Now it has spread to every service and profession. Doctors and lawyers have ratings. Barbers and delivery drivers have ratings. Even writers have ratings.
No one liked to be reviewed — especially if it’s a bad review. But, these days, almost everyone reads internet reviews before making purchase decisions. This new reality even applies to urologists.
Are Online Urologist Reviews Fair?
Of course, the online reviews of urologists aren’t fair. How can people who know nothing about urology give a reliable review of your skills? Studies show there’s little correlation between online reviews and the actual quality of care. But, online urologist reviews are still often fair. How does this contradiction work?
The primary issues reviewers cite for bad reviews are long wait times, little interaction with the urologist, and billing issues. These are areas that people with no medical education can understand. But do these issues matter?
Yes, they do. If a patient has to wait half a day to see you, they’ve lost half a day’s wages. The lower the patient’s income, the more important those lost wages are. It’s the difference between being able to afford necessities and having to do without.
But, you may see primarily Medicare patients. Medicare pays you significantly less than private insurance companies. That means you have to see more patients if you plan to cover overhead and pay your staff. More patients per day means longer wait times, and less interaction with you. Both these factors mean lower ratings on sites like HealthGrades and Vitals.
Even in these situations, there are things you can do to help your online ratings. These are things you need to do because those ratings will impact the success of your practice.
Statistics on Online Reviews for Physicians
If you don’t think physician star ratings matter, consider the following statistics from a study by NRC Health.
- Almost 35% of patients say their doctor’s online review is very important
- 37% of patients use online reviews as their first step in deciding on a doctor
- Over 83% of patients say they trust online reviews more than personal recommendations
- Patients consider online reviews at the same level as their doctor’s recommendations
- In the healthcare industry, there needs to be a critical mass of reviews before patients consider the review — seven reviews are enough for about 75% of patients
- If reviews are over 18 months old, 66% of patients consider the reviews to be out of date
- If there are only positive reviews, 59% of patients are suspicious
- Also, 59% of patients see negative reviews equal in importance to positive reviews
- Only 26% of patients value unverified reviews
- Over 51% of patients prefer verified reviews
Those are interesting numbers for general practices, but what about urologist internet reviews? Consider these numbers from the Journal of Medical Internet Research.
- Almost 25% of urologist reviews on HealthGrades were a 1-star rating
- Approximately 68% of urologist reviews on HealthGrades were a 5-star rating
That doesn’t leave a lot of room for the numbers in between the extremes. But it makes sense as the patients who feel the strongest, whether negative or positive, are the most likely to leave reviews.
The same study showed that for urologists, lower ratings were associated with a lower number of reviews. But, after 21 urologist internet reviews, the average physician star rating increased. That’s interesting since across all physician types, the “magic number” was seven. Why is it three times higher for urologists?
Another study found that 42% of the ratings on RateMD were between 2-star and 4-star. This cluster in the middle is the opposite of HealthGrades clusters at the extremes. The reason for this difference isn’t known.
Factors Most Commonly Cited in Urologist Reviews
JAMA Surgery published a study of California urologists and online ratings. It showed that higher-volume practices had lower online ratings. Longer waiting times and less patient-doctor interaction were blamed.
Another study published on the National Institutes of Health website shows that urologists practicing in subspecialties usually have higher ratings than general urologists. Whereas a general urologist’s average rating is 3.9, all subspecialties except one had higher average ratings.
Urologists specializing in infertility/sexual health had the lowest average rating at 3.8 while urologists specializing in robotics/oncology had the highest average rating at 4.5.
The Impact of Reviews on Urology Practices
A 2011 study by the Harvard Business School showed that for every one-star decrease in a business’s Yelp rating, there was a 9% decrease in revenues. Yelp also rates urologists. It’s important that the aforementioned study was from 11 years ago. Internet ratings are much more important in 2022. Therefore, the decrease in revenues for lower ratings is probably greater now.
Another study shows that 80% of patients will not see a doctor that has significant negative physician star ratings. Websites for businesses with three-star or higher average reviews have 87% more traffic than businesses with average reviews less than three-star.
It’s obvious that negative urologist patient reviews can cause substantial damage to your urology practice. If you have too many negative reviews, you need to do something about it. The next section discusses solutions to negative urologist internet reviews.
How To Handle Bad Reviews
The best way to handle bad urologist patient reviews is to listen to your patients and try to solve the issues they’re complaining about. But that’s not always so easy. Long wait times are the most common complaint in negative reviews for physicians. Yet, the economics of your practice may require a high-volume of patients. Hiring more staff to shorten wait times would require even more volume to pay the additional staff.
With the economic issues inherent in some practices, e.g., a practice with a high percentage of Medicare recipients, you can only do so much to solve the problem. But, there are other ways to reduce negative urologist internet reviews.
Responding to online reviews can help. You don’t have to violate HIPPA to explain some of the most common issues patients complain about. Personalized online communication will solve many of your problems.
A robust online presence with interactive capabilities can also be helpful. In 2022, people expect to get information online and be able to communicate online. These new norms apply to physician’s offices just like everything else.
You can hire an online reputation company to help reduce the impact of negative reviews. Just make sure you’re dealing with a reputable company. You don’t want to try adding fake reviews to offset negative reviews. That could cause you to get on the wrong side of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Conclusion
Online reviews are important for urologists in the 2020s. Negative urologist internet reviews can impact practices in terms of revenue and patients. It is best to solve the problems that patients are complaining about in their reviews. But that’s not always practical. You may need to hire an online reputation management firm.
Another solution is to provide online tools to give your patients more of what they want. In the 2020s, people want real-time information — preferably on their mobile phones. They want to communicate online. Give them what they want, and they’ll be less likely to lash out with bad online reviews.
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