Online Reputation Management for Healthcare Providers is a Necessity

Online reputation management (ORM) involves any activity that in some way or another helps in building, maintaining or protecting your reputation and authority within the patient community online.

Whether you’re creating health-related content that answers questions patients may be looking for online, or you’re leveraging your expertise to provide answers to inquiries on social platforms, all these augment your reputation online as a medical professional.

Nonetheless, the term ‘reputation’ is rooted more in the patients’ opinions and expectations. That’s why it won’t be wrong to consider that an online reputation management strategy is more about taking control of the online conversation.

Diving into the details, online reputation management for doctors may involve activities like using Twitter or Yelp to join conversations and address negative or defamatory comments about their practice. Or, it could be about encouraging positive reviews to negate the effects of a few negative reviews and improve the search engine rankings of your website.

Most patients will have reviews play a critical role in their decision-making. Thus, reputation management is no longer a choice for healthcare providers, but a necessity.

Patients have access to a wide pool of resources and want to find the best healthcare services they can receive. Patients research across the internet to learn everything about their health condition and the provider they’re considering, before committing to a decision.

The most obvious venues they visit during their research are review sites. Here, patients can gauge the opinion of their peers, learn positive and negative value points about a provider or practice. However, often not all reviews on a review site are true. Many of the reviews can be fake or highly exaggerated.

Some negative feedback may be based on harsh emotions or a misunderstanding. Having even a few fake or inaccurate reviews can fundamentally change the perception of the positive patient satisfaction. That’s why healthcare online reputation management (ORM) is necessary for doctors and physicians.

In order to maintain your reputation you must be proactive. Monitoring mentions and the appearance of new content matching the healthcare professional’s name is mandatory. This way, reputation damage can be mitigated and the recovery process can be much quicker. In order to handle negative opinions effectively, consider:

• Eliminate the disputed content, if it’s fake or false.
• Increase online visibility with a positive presence.
• Create new content: This allows you to establish your credibility and expertise as healthcare professional with a positive reputation.
• Respond to comments and feedback: This will reassure patients that the doctor listens and cares about the well-being of their patients even if the conversation takes place outside of their office.

Good monitoring helps keep an online reputation intact.