Sunday, April 1, 2012

Doctor Reputation Management: Powerful Prescription For Doctors

By Rayne Summers


For medical professionals who recognize an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, doctor reputation management can help make and maintain a positive and professional online image and produce a powerful patient referral network with minimal additional effort or expense. It's a powerful prescription for doctors who are worried about negative reviews hurting their medical practice. It's also included as part of the doctor's marketing strategy. Since they recognized that to draw in new patients you need more than just a very good bedside manner but a positive internet reputation, too.

While most people still rely on personal or insurance network referrals for their choice of doctor, patients are checking up on their doctors online. Patients may choose to go elsewhere based on negative reviews on any of the popular rating sites. Alternatively, a patient or potential patient may discover other negative content posted online, such as a lawsuit or an adverse disciplinary decision. Online reputation management involves a combination of digital marketing, public relations, legal and search engine optimization (SEO) skills to promote, protect and defend your online image. It can suppress negative content by using social media, blogs, news media, personal websites and other tools to help you "own" the first pages of Google. Online defamation has become a widespread problem for mental health and substance abuse prevention practitioners who may be treating patients with serious behavioral or social disorders.

Disgruntled and dissatisfied patients who take their frustrations out online are a great threat to any medical professional. In comparison, positive feedback and reviews from satisfied patients are a free advertisement that can support a thriving medical practice. In this era of online communications and social media, our reputations can be attacked in a nanosecond. Reputations take years to build but are so fragile that they can crumble quickly. It may take months or years to erect a building which a bulldozer can take down in a day. It is likely that a patient, or even a fellow physician, can target your practice using the Internet and especially with the ease of using social media can wreck havoc on your reputation and on your practice.

Doctors live and die by their reputations. They spend their whole professional lives developing and protecting their reputations. It's a known marketing and public relations dictum that a satisfied patient tells 3-5 people regarding a positive experience; whereas a patient with a bad experience with the doctor or the practice is likely to inform 10-20 others. The Internet and social media has evolved a lot. Now somebody with gripe could get their negative opinions out to thousands of viewers in just moments.

Doctor reputation management is crucial because even the most well run and patient-focused medical practice sometimes experience negative publicity and even downright slanderous remarks online. However, it is critical to address these reputation issues as quickly as possible. Your negative reviews can be pushed down or replaced with new and positive web content. With doctor reputation management, you can protect your internet reputation in no time and little expense.




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