Like many health care providers, you may dread the thought of negative online reviews about your practice and the potential damage it could do to your bottom line. What makes negative reviews from patients particularly troubling is that in many instances, you may not understand why the review is so negative. Even with further investigation, you may find no evidence that the treatment you provided the patient was substandard or lacking.
According to Medical Economics, it is important to place negative patient reviews in the proper context. If you have more negative reviews than positive ones, that could be very detrimental to your business, and some form of reputation management may be in order. However, if the good reviews outweigh the bad, the negative reviews are unlikely to do much harm professionally, although they can be personally hurtful.
If you get one bad review, it is not only prospective patients that may see it but also those you have treated in the past. Those who are happy with the care you provided may respond to the negative review by defending you. This can dilute the impact that the negative review can have.
Furthermore, if all prospective patients see are glowingly positive reviews, they may find it off-putting. Human beings sometimes react negatively to others perceived as too perfect. As long as the negative reviews are the exception rather than the rule, it can humanize you in the eyes of prospective patients by demonstrating that you have a few flaws. The psychological term for the concept of seeking out flaws rather than perfection is the pratfall effect.
While you cannot remove negative patient reviews, and it is not always wise to respond to them, you can decrease the chances that prospective patients will see them by increasing your online footprint, e.g., creating a website and using social media.
