As with professors, plumbers, and restaurants, physicians are being reviewed online. Many times when you search for a specific doctor’s name, the first page of search results has sites like Vitals.com or RateMDs.com that have reviews of doctors.
I generally distrust online reviews for the following reasons:
1. They’re easy to fake by people with a vested interest in the failure or success of a product or service (such as business owners or competitors).
2. Most reviews represent a very small sample size of people who interacted with a product or service.
3. Review sites tend to primarily attract fanatical supporters and detractors of the item under review.
If a doctor feels that they have unfair reviews, here is a potential strategy that doesn’t involve deception. They could invite reviews from former patients who have become close friends or patients who had their lives saved by the doctor in question. It might not be legal or ethical to ask a current patient for a review, but it should be fine to ask former patients, such as those who have moved out of the state or nation.
