“Better that doctors take some slanderous lumps online, and instead, encourage more of their patients to rate them.”


doctor, whether these doctors want one or not,” said Dr. Pho, the founder of the health blog KevinMD.com and a scheduled speaker at TexMed 2017 May 5–9 in Houston. Visit www.tex med.org/texmed for information. A February 2014 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) article reported 35 percent of prospec- tive patients who sought online re- views chose a physician based on good reviews from a ratings site, and about the same percentage took negative reviews as a cue to look elsewhere for their care. If physicians aren’t aware that those profiles of them are already out there, Dr. Pho adds, “that’s going to be the first impression of them online. When patients google their doctors’ names, there’s a possibility that these rating sites may come up first, and that will form these patients’ first impressions of the doctor. That’s why it’s impera- tive that they be proactive.” Being reactive is important, too. But


when physicians and practices react to something they see online — say, a viciously critical review — they also must be careful to react in the right way.


OWNING YOUR PRESENCE AND LEARNING THE SITES Dr. Pho and medical content strate- gist Susan Gay coauthored the 2013 book Establishing, Managing, and Protecting Your Online Reputation: A Social Media Guide for Physicians and Medical Practices. The book notes most review sites pull information on medical practices from commercially available databases, so those practic- es already will be listed on the sites without any effort from the physician to establish a presence on them. The review sites generally operate


in a similar fashion, Dr. Pho notes. Most of them allow physicians and practices to “claim” their profiles, which allows them to personalize those profiles with photos, a descrip- tion of the practice, credentials, and other information. Doing so is an im-


34 TEXAS MEDICINE March 2017


portant piece of taking command of an online presence, Dr. Pho says. Kyle Bickling, practice manager for


Eye Institute of Austin, says the oph- thalmology practice tries to give re- view site searchers a snapshot of the services it offers. Eye Institute’s page on Zocdoc, www.zocdoc.com, for ex- ample, has a practice summary, list of specialties, its in-network insurance plans, and pictures and credentials for physicians. “We want to make sure that patients know and can easily find out what sort of a practice we are, where we are, what sort of broad-picture services we offer,” Mr. Bickling said. Although the review sites operate similarly — usually allowing a user to leave a practice a star rating, as well as a comment — learning some of the nuances of each can prove valuable. The directory and review site Vitals, www.vitals.com, for example, allows a profile owner to hide two negative re- views, a useful tool to negate a patient whose criticism crosses the line. The site Healthgrades, www.healthgrades .com, has a similar option available to hide reviews, says Texas Medical Association practice consultant Brad Davis. “Some of them have a do-it-yourself vault where you can put X number of items in there, whereas some of them have an appeals process [for reviews], so you want to know how those sites work so you can deal with each ac- cordingly,” he said. Other popular medicine-specific


rating sites include www.drscore.com, www.ratemds.com, and www.health carereviews.com. If you’d rather a prospective pa-


tient’s first impression of your prac- tice not come from review sites, you can take steps to minimize that from occurring. While search engine optimization (SEO) professionals hinge their reputations on favor- ably portraying a client or employer on Google, physicians and practices can potentially do some leveraging of Google on their own without any


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