Patients are savvy and know that they have choices when it comes to their care. With so many options, they look to online reviews from previous patients to determine where to go. In fact, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations and 85% of consumers said they read up to ten reviews. Therefore, having many reviews is important to attract future patients.
Online reviews serve as social proof. One way prospective patients decide to put their trust in your team is by reviewing ratings for key metrics like wait times, quality of care, bedside manner, staff friendliness, and facility cleanliness. In addition to rating these aspects of your clinic, consumers also want to see what previous patients have shared in their written reviews, and look for trends within reviews such as “fast”, “easy”, and “friendly”.
5 ways get more online reviews to gain attention from prospective consumers
- Invest in your online presence
- Maintain reasonable door-to-door times
- Provide a great in-clinic experience
- Ask directly!
- Respond to reviews
Invest in your online presence
Patients are more likely to leave a review when they know it’ll be seen. When patients see you acting on previous patients' reviews, they’re more likely to also want to leave a qualitative review about their experience because they know they can provide helpful information and recommendations for other prospective patients looking for care.
Not all patients have accounts on all social sites, so make sure you can capture all of the reviews that patients leave by setting up and maintaining listings on a number of sites, especially on sites with high patient traffic like Google.
Shorten your door-to-door times
As Shaun Ginter, former president of the Urgent Care Association shared at the annual 2022 convention, “Door-to-door times are the #1 driver for patient reviews on Google.” We’ve consistently seen that even if the clinical team provides great patient care and the staff is kind and attentive, patients value their time so much that it will urge them to leave a review (both positive and negative ones).
A great way to increase patient throughput while not increasing headcount is by providing online appointments and easy-to-use digital registration so that patients can complete their paperwork on their own time from the comfort of their home. Filling out paperwork can take patients 15 minutes or more, so when patients arrive with their registration completed, the front desk staff can make sure the patient is registered and roomed more quickly, which leads to a faster discharge time.
Provide a great in-clinic experience
When seeking care, many patients aren’t feeling their best. They may be anxious, nervous, or even scared to come into the clinic and see a provider. Upon arrival, greet patients and provide clarity on what their next step should be - usually signing in at the front desk and completing their registration if they haven’t already done so.
The providers often see a few patients every hour, but should take the time to make sure that patients feel heard and answer all of their questions. One reason patients often leave a negative review is when their prescription is not called into the pharmacy and the patient is unable to pick it up on their way home, thereby delaying the start of their treatment plan.
Ask directly!
A scalable way to increase your online presence is to leverage a digital tool to send patients texts and emails requesting online reviews after their visit.
Using software with a reputation management component like Solv means that all discharged patients will automatically receive a link to leave a review via SMS and email so they can choose either way to leave a review and enhance your online ratings and qualitative reviews.
Oftentimes, patients will sing your praises or provide a compliment to staff directly during their visit. People enjoy sharing their experiences with others, so feel free to let these patients know that they’ll receive a text message after their visit asking for a review of their visit, and you’d appreciate it if they shared their experience.
The request can come from anyone - the front desk, a medical assistant, your radiology technician or the provider. Some facilities create a small business sized card thanking the patient for trusting them with their care and asking them to leave a review when prompted.
Respond to reviews
Reach out to patients who have left poor ratings to see if there's anything you can do to improve their experience and have them remove or edit their original review. Check Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for negative feedback and respond in a transparent, polite way. Be sure to respond to the positive reviews, too! A little bit of candor and wit can go a long way towards putting your practice ahead of the competition.
Looking to boost your patient volume even more? Solv has over 9 million consumers searching for same-day care every month. Check out our blog for more useful tips or schedule a demo to see how our services can help you increase patient volume and deliver best-in-class experiences for your patients.
