What are your thoughts on online patient reviews (especially bad reviews)?

[psyche108]

Hey guys, I was wondering what are your thoughts on online patient reviews, specifically receiving bad reviews from patients. I know that patient reviews are something that all doctors and healthcare professionals have to deal with, but I'm putting this in the psychiatry section because this is where my primary interest is (I'm an undergraduate student, although I'm not sure if I actually want to become some type of healthcare provider).

This might sound unusual and weird, but one thing I do is look up random psychiatrists that might seem interesting (as in they do interesting research, they're my same ethnic background, involved in healthcare startups, use certain types of therapies in their practice, other random stuff), I guess as inspiration. After that I also look up patient reviews to see whether they're good doctors or not. While I see a lot of good reviews, I do run into a few bad patient reviews, saying how the psychiatrist was very condescending or arrogant, gave the wrong diagnosis, gave the wrong drug, gave too many drugs, or just had a terrible bedside manner and was not listening to the patient.

Overall, what are your thoughts on these patient reviews? I do think reviews can help determine who's a good doctor, but at the same time, this makes me reluctant to go into healthcare. I'm worried I may have an off day or something and might snap at a patient or due to incomplete information, I might give a wrong diagnosis and give them the wrong medicine and end up severely harming them, or for some reason, I might seem condescending and arrogant, and make the patient feel terrible (yes I know I'm being overly neurotic and a worrywart for an undecided confused undergraduate student, but these are some reasons that contribute to my confusion).

Have you guys every looked up online reviews and checked out what patients said about you? If you received any bad reviews, what did you think about them?

Thanks!

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[675015]

Nothing is more important to a physician, particularly psychiatrists, than anonymous online patient-physician reviews.

 

[psych72]

Nothing is more important to a physician, particularly psychiatrists, than anonymous online patient-physician reviews.

Are you being sarcastic? If not, could u please expain?

 

[MacDonaldTriad]

I’m sure that was sarcasm. 100% glowing reviews could mean bad things about a psychiatrist. You would want a universally popular psychiatrist if you were angling for certain recreational drugs, but this would be a bad sign for a psychiatrist if you were recovered from an addiction for instance.

 

[birchswing]

Online reviews can give you an idea of a trend, but usually there aren't enough reviews to form an opinion, in my opinion. Also, they sometimes seem to be padded with glowing reviews that are very similar in language making me think that the doctor or someone on their behalf has written them. You would really need a much higher percentage of patients who use a particular doctor to rate them to get a good idea. And unfortunately there's no equivalent of "Verified Purchase" like there is on Amazon. Doctors tend to develop reputations among other doctors, though, which is another way to get information on a potential doctor. Therapists, for example, have patients who see a diverse number of psychiatrists and can, in my experience, give you an overview of what patients tend to think about each psychiatrist. You can also alway to look to see if a doctor has had disciplinary action taken by the state--though, even then, I think there are cases where good doctors have gotten in trouble for fairly minor things and bad doctors have somehow avoided ever getting in trouble. I don't think good doctors tend to worry too much about bad reviews, especially psychiatrists who are in high demand. I think reputation among people you know in real life is more important at this point in time. Maybe in the future there will be a better way to verify reviews, but right now I think that there are too few to draw strong conclusions from. I do use them, though, as a starting point, if I have nothing else to go on.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

A lot of the negative reviews I see are for doctors who do inpatient psychiatry -- doing that, I think it's pretty much inevitable that you'll get bad reviews because you're treating patients who are there involuntarily with pretty bad insight. Same is true for physicians who treat addiction.

 

[675015]

Are you being sarcastic? If not, could u please expain?

Sorry about the sarcasm. Patient satisfaction scores are tough to apply to physicians. As mentioned above, the goals of the patient and of the provider aren't always in line. To use even more benign examples than drugs, a patient who feels they need an X-ray for their shoulder injury will not speak highly of a doctor who refuses to order one when its not indicated. Many patients insist a doctor has poor bedside manner because he or she says they need to diet and exercise before they refer to a bypass. You get the idea.

 

[Ceke2002]

Online reviews can give you an idea of a trend, but usually there aren't enough reviews to form an opinion, in my opinion. Also, they sometimes seem to be padded with glowing reviews that are very similar in language making me think that the doctor or someone on their behalf has written them. You would really need a much higher percentage of patients who use a particular doctor to rate them to get a good idea. And unfortunately there's no equivalent of "Verified Purchase" like there is on Amazon. Doctors tend to develop reputations among other doctors, though, which is another way to get information on a potential doctor. Therapists, for example, have patients who see a diverse number of psychiatrists and can, in my experience, give you an overview of what patients tend to think about each psychiatrist. You can also alway to look to see if a doctor has had disciplinary action taken by the state--though, even then, I think there are cases where good doctors have gotten in trouble for fairly minor things and bad doctors have somehow avoided ever getting in trouble. I don't think good doctors tend to worry too much about bad reviews, especially psychiatrists who are in high demand. I think reputation among people you know in real life is more important at this point in time. Maybe in the future there will be a better way to verify reviews, but right now I think that there are too few to draw strong conclusions from. I do use them, though, as a starting point, if I have nothing else to go on.

Yeah, same here, pretty much. I'm currently in the position where my husband and I *might* be moving interstate at *some* point (it's all really up in the air at the moment), so I kind of need to at least be looking to seek out another Psychiatrist, or at least put together a short list of ones I might consider seeing. I will use online reviews as a semi jumping off point, but the only comments that will have me dismissing a Doctor completely off hand are anything that points to inappropriate behaviour or advances made towards patients - everything else is a 'read between the lines' type scenario for me (eg: I don't like Doctor Anon, because he wouldn't listen, dismissed my diagnosis and wanted to stop the only medication that's ever helped = (reading between the lines) I tried to score pills, and that mofo wouldn't give me any').

 

[PikminOC]

The other issue is that we cant write back publicly to the comments due to Hipaa. Bunch of crap if you ask me.

 

[thoffen]

You won't and shouldn't please all of your patients in psychiatry. Many patients will come in with the agenda of you supporting some defensive fantasy about themselves, wanting a medication you don't agree with, wanting you to testify that they are disabled, etc. Your job is to focus on reality. Most patients you can build an alliance toward a real version of better with, but there will be those you can't who may write bad things about you on the internet.

Thankfully psychiatrists are unlikely to be hurting for new patients, and any existing patient you have an alliance with won't give a rat's arse about these reviews.

FYI my random internet search of these ratings revealed that actual reviews are very infrequent. Additionally most of the negative ones were earned by doctors known to be $ focused and med pushing in lieu of respecting patient time.

 

[PikminOC]

You won't and shouldn't please all of your patients in psychiatry. Many patients will come in with the agenda of you supporting some defensive fantasy about themselves, wanting a medication you don't agree with, wanting you to testify that they are disabled, etc. Your job is to focus on reality. Most patients you can build an alliance toward a real version of better with, but there will be those you can't who may write bad things about you on the internet.

Thankfully psychiatrists are unlikely to be hurting for new patients, and any existing patient you have an alliance with won't give a rat's arse about these reviews.

FYI my random internet search of these ratings revealed that actual reviews are very infrequent. Additionally most of the negative ones were earned by doctors known to be $ focused and med pushing in lieu of respecting patient time.

You mean being late for patients?

 

[thoffen]

That but more so listening to patients, building alliance, calling collateral when necessary, etc. Basically the sense that you are being "rushed" out the door, which may have little to do with starting on time.

 

[Ceke2002]

A couple of the stranger reviews I've seen recently (I'm paraphrasing to prevent direct searches):

Dr X appears to be basically self actualised.

Dr Y is a very kind and friendly Doctor; however, I will not be returning to him due to his male chauvinist interpretation of my diagnosis

Dr Z is a wonderful Psychiatrist, and there are very colourful costumers in his waiting room (I assume they mean 'customers')