Doctors that don't respond to online reviews risk losing patients

Consumers as patients are using online ratings and review sites to rate doctors. A new survey of 2,409 consumers by SoftwareAdvice.com finds that about 72% of consumers now use online ratings sites and physician reviews as their first step in finding a new doctor. That’s up significantly from about 25% in 2013, says SoftwareAdvice.com, a unit of Gartner.

But just as consumers have key reasons for looking up and comparison shopping finding a doctor, physicians also have good business reasons for reading patient reviews and responding with good feedback in a timely—but not immediate or hasty—manner. The frequency with which patients use review sites varies, but a combined majority do so regularly: 54% report using them “often” or “sometimes,” while slightly more than one-quarter of respondents use them “rarely,” says SoftwareAdvice.com researcher Gaby Loria. “This dynamic can make or break a medical practice’s online reputation,” Loria says. “It’s not just that so many patients are using reviews—it’s that those reviews are often the first thing patients see.”

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