It happened to me. I recently got a one-star review from an unhappy patient. Despite having hundreds of 5-star reviews across the internet, getting a negative review always hurts a little. As a plastic surgeon, here is my perspective.
Privacy Laws Still Apply
A patient who writes a negative review does not waive their right to privacy. For this reason, doctors cannot respond to a negative review by posting “the doctor’s side of the story.” Even if a patient writes information that is objectively untrue, correcting this information online by the medical office runs the risk of privacy violations.
For example, if a patient writes “The doctor didn’t see me after surgery,” the medical office cannot respond with “The doctor saw you every week for two months.” Even this release of information about the duration of treatment and frequency of visits may constitute a privacy violation.
The Person Was Upset for a Reason
The first thing I try to say to myself after a bad review is “Maybe I can learn something from this.” I owe the patient the courtesy to empathize with their point of view, even if I do not share it. There is always a reason for a negative review, even if I do not agree with the reasoning. Understanding is the key to improvement.
Negative Reviews are a Sign of a Real Business
It is not possible to be a busy plastic surgeon, perform facelifts, neck lifts, breast lifts and tummy tucks and not have any dissatisfied patients. A dissatisfied patient does not mean that anything was done wrong, or even that anything went wrong. I have even had patients’ whose surgical results were excellent be unhappy for other reasons. Some of them may write a review! I feel that these negative reviews add balance and authenticity to my positive reviews.
It is not possible for any legitimate business to have a 100% satisfaction rate. Recently, a Seattle cosmetic surgeon had to pay a 5-million-dollar penalty after illegally manipulating online customer reviews and threatening patients.
A Lack of Negative Reviews is a Sign of Review Gating
Review gating is a mechanism to hide negative reviews. Businesses who gate reviews will email clients asking for a review. If you click, in the email, on anything other than “5-stars,” you are directed to an internal questionnaire. On this internal questionnaire, you can comment and rant about your negative experience. But your less-than-5-star, negative review, will stay internal to the business, and no one else will ever see it.
Click “5-stars” in the email and you are forwarded to Google where your review will be seen by others and indexed by Google’s search engine. These reviews are also used by Google to order internet search results.
Professionalism is not a Popularity Contest
I remind myself, and my colleagues, that whenever we receive a negative review, this is a chance to respect a patient’s privacy, learn something, move on, and try to provide excellent results every day.