News: 70% of patients call online reviews crucial in selecting providers, study finds

According to a new study from PatientPop, online reviews are playing a pivotal role in how patients pick their healthcare providers, HealthLeaders Media reported.

“This is the new normal for medical practices in 2019. Choosing a doctor based on online profiles and patient reviews is the old word-of-mouth at today's scale and speed. Number of reviews, average star rating, and convenient hours and locations are essential ‘shopping’ details that patients expect to find before stepping foot into a waiting room,” the survey report says.

The survey, which features responses from more than 800 people about online reputation and patient reviews, generated several key data points:

• 74.6% of respondents had researched doctors, dentists, or medical care online
• 69.9% said a positive online reputation is very or extremely important in selecting a healthcare provider
• 51.8% of patients who had submitted negative online reviews about a medical practice had not been contacted to address their concerns
• Patient satisfaction doubles when a medical practice addresses a negative online review

“While satisfied patients are more prevalent online than unhappy ones, the fact remains more than 1 in 3 patients who’ve shared their experience online have submitted a negative review. Negative reviews are going to pop up—they’re an unavoidable aspect of customer service for any business, in any industry,” the survey report says.

The powerful effect of addressing negative reviews was an unexpected finding of the survey, Joel Headley, director of local SEO and marketing at PatientPop, told HealthLeaders Media.

“It was surprising to see just how much patient satisfaction can increase—99%—following a negative review based on just one action: practices reaching out to address the patient's concerns,” he said. “We assumed that good common courtesy and customer service would bump up respondents’ satisfaction rates, but I don't think we expected they would double.”

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in HealthLeaders Media. To read the full survey report, click here. To learn more about CDI’s role in publicly reported quality data, click here.