Patient reviews on different review websites have a strong influence on the online reputation of the healthcare industry. Study has shown that 82% of patients use online reviews to evaluate medical professionals. This means that more patients evaluate the services of any medical professionals through online reviews before asking for their services.
Another study has shown that 72% of patients use online reviews as the first step in searching for a new doctor. This means that the better your reviews as a doctor, the more patients you get.
Healthcare industry needs to pay close attention to what patients are saying about their services online as this will have a great influence on the healthcare industry either positively or negatively.
Patient reviews are also important in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), as it greatly influences the online listing of any medical practitioner or medical organizations in search engines.
Study has shown that 88% of consumers trust online reviews much more than personal recommendations. This means the more reviews you have on your web page as a medical doctor or as a medical practitioner, the higher your web page will appear in search engines such as Google.
How Reviews Influences Medical Organizations – Important Information
There are different key information that patient looks out for in review sites about particular medical personnel’s or organizations before seeking their services. Some of this information could be termed “not very important” as a general view but they are in fact very important because of the medical implications or negative results they could effect on both patients and the healthcare industry in general.
What are they very important information that patient looks out for when they check the online reviews of a medical provider?
A survey was conducted on this and the result shows that 28% of patients check the rating star, 26% check the information about the quality of services provided, 24% check the information about the doctor’s background, 20% check the feedbacks about other patient experience, and 2% check the pictures of the doctor or the office environment.
This survey shows that the star rating and the quality of services provided are very important for the online reputation and listing of any medical provider.
When talking about “quality of services”, what are the services that of most importance to patients?
Quality of services is a broad topic so a survey was conducted on this and the result shows that 26% of patients stated the diagnosis accuracy results, 23% stated the listening skills, 22% stated explanation skills.
This shows that more patients are very particular about test and diagnosis results. Wrong information about diagnosis result of a patient could devastate the state of mind of that patient which could lead to more harm.
Apart from medical services, patients also stated that administrative services are of importance to them. A survey was conducted on this, 24% stated that friendliness of medical staffs are of great importance to them, another 24% stated that ease of scheduling appointments is important to them, 20% stated waiting time, 16% stated cleanliness of office environment, 15% stated billing and payment issues and the remaining 1% for other issues.
This shows that patients don’t only check online reviews only because of the medical services, the administrative services are also of great importance. For this reason, medical organisations need to always improve their administrative services as this greatly influence their online reputation.
Is there any Effect of Negative Reviews?
As a medical provider, you don’t need to be scared of having negative reviews as study has shown that only 7% of patient will leave very negative or somewhat negative reviews, majority of reviews will be neutral or positive reviews. Patients focus more on positive reviews than the negative reviews when searching for a medical provider.
Most patients disregard negative reviews for some reasons. A survey was conducted on this and the result shows that 31% disregards negative reviews because they seem exaggerated, 30% disregards negative reviews because their expectations are unreasonable, another 20% disregards negative reviews because the doctor responded adequately to their issues, 18% thought that the issues wouldn’t apply to them and so they disregarded the negative reviews and 1% disregarded based on other reasons.
Negative reviews though not very suiting to the eyes are ways whereby doctors and medical providers can better improve their services. Most negative reviews inform medical providers of the areas in which they defect and needs to improve on.
Study has shown that 65% of patients feel it is very important for doctors to respond to online reviews. This further encourages the patient to trust on the services of the doctors and get to acquire more needed information.
Ways to Generate Reviews
As a medical provider or healthcare organization, there are some effective ways to generate reviews. We will be showing you some of the ways you can apply so as to generate more reviews.
Create a Web Page
If you as a medical provider or organization don’t already have a webpage where patients can leave reviews, the first step is to create a page that has all important and necessary information.
It is on your webpage that patient can check and review you and your services. Review websites such as Google My Business, Bing, Yelp, are some of the best sites to create a webpage.
Deliver Good Quality Services
This is the first step to get more reviews from patients. When your services to your patients are of good quality then patients will be happy to leave reviews on your page.
People generally tend to reciprocate good deeds and delivery good services to patients will encourage them to reciprocate your good deeds which is giving positive feedbacks as reviews. So in order to get more reviews from patients, try as much as possible to deliver the best services to them.
Ask Patients for Reviews
A study has shown that 7 out of every 10 people will leave you a review if you ask them. This shows that to get more reviews from patients just ask them. Before asking for reviews from patients, you need to first deliver services to them. This is when they have experience on what to give feedback on.
As we all know, reviews are simply feedbacks of services rendered, so to get positive feedbacks render good services. Asking patients for reviews should be done in a polite manner and at the right time.
As a medical doctor or healthcare provider, you can ask your patients for reviews through word of mouth or by pasting posters and banners around your office environment. The posters will constantly remind them of the importance of their reviews for your online reputation which will facilitate their willingness to leave reviews.
Share Review Links
In order to get more patient to leave reviews on your webpage, you need to share your review links with them. You can do this by sending direct messages with your review URL link to their phone numbers or email addresses.
When patients receive your URL link on their phones or emails, they will be more prompted to click the link and leave you reviews. You can also share your URL link through different social media platforms to get to more patients.
Keep in mind that your URL link shouldn’t be too long as this can also discourage patients from clicking the link. Make it as short as possible to look more welcoming to the eyes.
Make it Easier for Patients to make Reviews
This is another effective way to get patients to leave reviews on your webpage. Most people will not make a review if they find the steps too difficult or too much to follow. They get tired along the way and forget about it.
To prevent a situation like this, then reduce the steps for patients to make reviews or create a URL link that directly takes them to the review page where they can write a review when they click the link. This way they don’t have to keep following series of steps and it encourages them to leave reviews.
Respond to Reviews
This is very important for all medical practitioners or healthcare providers. Try as much as possible to respond to as many reviews as you can. This creates a sense of trust and encouragement in the minds of other patients to leave reviews on your webpage.
They know that if they give feedback or ask a question you are there to respond to them, so they are encouraged to give more feedbacks.
Conclusion
Patient reviews are a very important instrument to get better online recognition and reputation. Due to this reason, healthcare industry should be up-and-doing in delivering better services in order to get more positive reviews from patients. We all know that positive reviews are best to give good reputations but negative reviews are also important to encourage you to improve your services.
So you need to improve your services in order to generate more positive reviews to create a better online reputation and increase your SEO listing in search engines.
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