Patients choose doctors heavily on ratings, and physician review sites rank highly for a provider’s name. Each site removes reviews that break its guidelines, but every public reply has to stay within patient privacy law.
Reviews from people who were never patients, reviews about a different provider, threats and harassment, spam, and reviews that disclose someone else’s health information. Honest patient experiences, including about wait times or billing, stay.
Claim your provider profile on each site, then report the review from your account, explaining which guideline it breaks. Zocdoc reviews come from verified bookings, so disputes there focus on guideline breaches rather than identity.
Under HIPAA, a provider should not confirm that a reviewer is a patient or discuss their care in a public reply. Regulators have fined practices for doing so. Keep replies general and invite the person to contact the office.
Asking every patient for feedback, through a compliant process, is the most effective way to put one unfair review into context.
Yes, as long as the reply does not confirm they are a patient or mention their care. A general thank-you and an invitation to call the office is the safest approach.
What to write, what never to write, and why the response matters more to future customers than the review itself.
Read moreWhich Avvo reviews break the rules, how attorneys dispute them, and how to respond to criticism without breaching client confidentiality.
Read moreHow to identify a fake or coordinated review, document it, and report it on grounds that actually succeed.
Read moreTell us what you are dealing with. We will tell you honestly what can come down, and there is no charge unless it does.