Get Good Reviews From Your Patients (the Right Way)

People don’t want to go to the doctor until they’re dealing with something that refuses to be ignored. By then, they literally have a pain point — and they’re already in the consideration stage. That’s good news for your practice. But even when someone has a personal referral from a friend or physician, they’re still going to investigate your reputation online.

Good reviews from your patients affect whether or not someone gives you a call. If you want to grow your practice, you need to start generating positive reviews online. Here are some of the best ways to get good reviews from your patients.

get good reviews from your patients

Ask your patients for reviews

Don’t put a patient on the spot or make them feel pressured to leave a review, but a polite request from your staff as patients leave the office goes a long way—“If you’ve had a positive experience with us, we’d love if you’d leave us a review online!”

Let patients know that their feedback helps others just like them make the right choice.

Signage in your waiting room and restrooms can also prompt happy patients to leave reviews. Appointment reminder cards and receipts can also be used to ask for reviews. Always let patients know that their feedback helps others just like them make the right choice when it comes to their healthcare provider.

Make it easy to leave reviews

Once you’ve convinced a patient to leave a review, make sure they don’t abandon the process when it gets too complicated. Provide a review link on your website, in emails and on your social media. Your directions should be clear to someone even if they’ve never left a review online before.

You can even leave tablets with your review site in the waiting room for anyone who’d like to leave a review while they wait for their appointment!

Manage your local listings

Your patients can’t leave reviews if you don’t have profiles set up. And they won’t trust those reviews if you don’t manage your profile with up to date information, credentials, hours, types of insurance taken, and more.

Additionally, you should set up listings for each provider at your practice along with your overall practice listings. People want to know what it’s like interacting with individual physicians as much as they want to know about the vibe of your practice and practicalities like average wait times.

Sound like a lot to manage? It is. We provide this service for our healthcare marketing clients, giving doctors more time to focus on patient care. (We can help you, too.)

Do not incentivize reviews

If you’ve ever purchased something on Amazon, you probably received a follow-up email asking you to leave a review. In many cases, those sellers offer a future discount or other incentive. Incentivizing reviews can land you in hot water.

Avoid this practice, as tempting as it sounds to get good reviews from your patients by kicking them gift cards or discounts. You may find that your competitors are still doing it, or that marketers are recommending this practice, but it’s always best to stay on the FTC’s good side.

Give patients a reason to leave a good review

You can’t get good reviews from your patients if you don’t provide amazing patient experiences. When a patient leaves a positive review, they are essentially saying “my experience was so good, I’m taking my personal time to recommend this to everyone else.” That’s huge.

Read More: How to Respond to Negative Reviews Online >>

Make sure that everyone at your practice understands that good reviews impact your business not only by convincing patients who are researching you to book an appointment, but by boosting your local search rankings and the overall reputation of your practice. How do they fit into that big picture? They need to keep in mind that every single patient might walk out the door and leave a review. Be remarkable and people will spread the word. Offer remarkably poor service and people will spread the word far and wide. That’s the nature of the internet.

Why take a chance by providing lackluster patient experiences?

This is an exact science. It’s an ongoing effort that everyone at your healthcare practice needs to be on board with, from your providers to your front office staff to your marketing team.

Need help marketing your healthcare practice? Let’s talk.