Whether you’re aware of it or not, reviews of your healthcare practice are out there. And with so many patients reading and relying on them, it’s your job to ensure your reviews are accurate, updated/verified, and considered as part of business feedback. Getting started with online reviews can be difficult. Especially when you’re wanting to turn positive experiences into reviews.
To help you get started, we’ve compiled a list of the top 8 free healthcare review sites you should be listed on and actively monitor for each of your healthcare practice locations.
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With more than 9 million total reviews and 30 million visitors a month, HealthGrades is one of the most popular and reliable sites. Using trusted data from the government’s National Provider Identifier (NPI) Registry, the site functions as a free directory of over 3 million healthcare providers. Users can find the profiles of every provider in your practice by location, specialties, and conditions.
The information on each profile may include
- Location
- Accepted insurance
- Education and credentials
- Services provided, including specialties
- Communication methods (text, email, online patient portal, telehealth visits)
From there, ratings (anonymous or not) are based on the following factors:
- Patients’ trust in provider’s decisions
- Ability to explain conditions well
- Ability to listen and answer questions
- Amount of time spent with the patient
- Ease of appointment scheduling
- Office environment (cleanliness and comfort)
- Staff (friendliness and courteousness)
- Wait times
For in-depth advice on how to make the most of your HealthGrade profile, check out How HealthGrade Reviews can drive patients to your practice.
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Another popular review site, Doctor.com, allows patients to search for healthcare providers based on location, specialty, or insurance. In addition to an overall rating, the HIPPA compliant reviews from verified “authentic patients of this provider” are based on the following components:
- Willingness to spend time with patients
- Listening skills
- Clear explanations
- Trust in decision making
- Accuracy of diagnosis
- Post visit-follow up
- Ease of getting an appointment
- Appearance and atmosphere of office
- Courtesy of practice staff
- Handling of billing matters
- Wait time
Learn more about managing your profile and responding to reviews at our guide How Doctor.com reviews bring patients to your practice.
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Wellness.com is another medical directory compiled from public records on actively licensed medical professionals. In addition to basic information that is already public, doctors are free to upload their own unique bios and/or details of their practice.
While Wellness.com is free, you also have the option to pay for a “Featured Page.” “Featured Pages” have priority placement in search engine results and enable you to remove ads on your listing.
Reviews are anonymous and based on dozens of questions relating to service, environment, expertise, staff, value, and recommendations. To authenticate your listing and prevent others from posing as your practice, Wellness.com walks you through the steps of publishing a Wellness Verified widget on your website. This way, your listing links to your practice website and vise versa, so potential patients can see you take their care seriously.
See the Ultimate Guide to Wellness.com Reviews for further information and step-by-step instructions to optimize your listing.
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Rate MDs is home to more than 2.6 million ratings of medical professionals. As with other sites, information is pulled from the National Provider Identifier Registry and can be updated after claiming your listing. On this site, reviews can be left about healthcare facilities as well as individual doctors.
Reviews are published anonymously and based on four categories for doctors: staff, helpfulness, punctuality, and knowledge. For healthcare businesses, the categories for review are cleanliness, value, services, and facilities. With each review, patients rate the categories (ranging from terrible to excellent) and leave a comment of no more than 50 characters.
If it’s in your budget to select additional benefits from Rate MDs, consider one of their paid plans outlined below.
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In addition to compiling basic public information about healthcare professionals, Vitals.com searches medical boards from all 50 states, federal websites, hospitals, doctors, surveys, business alliances, and third-party affiliates to provide as much information like specialties, awards, and affiliations as possible. This, plus the reviews left by patients, creates a valuable space for you to see through the lens of the patient and respond accordingly. After claiming your account, you can respond to reviews posted on the site.
Users who leave reviews on Vitals.com provide an overall rating (out of 5 stars) and a comment detailing their experience. They also agree to the terms of use stating that they have received treatment from this provider.
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There is a multitude of benefits to claim from optimizing your Google Business Profile. As compared to healthcare-specific review sites, Google is a platform most people are already familiar with and can easily navigate. In addition to providing important information like hours of operation and directions to your office (through Google Maps), Google reviews are helpful for multi-location practices so patients can read reviews, see pictures, and know what to expect at each specific location. Optimizing your profile where search queries often start (Google) will draw qualified leads to your business through local SEO and increase overall brand trust.
With Google reviews, patients are asked to
- Rate their experience out of 5 stars
- Share details of their experience at a specific location
- Leave pictures with their review (optional)
Reviewers are identified through their Google account. When inviting your patients to leave a Google review (in person, through text, or email), be sure to specify why these reviews matter to your business and what aspects of your practice you would like feedback on.
For tips on collecting more Google reviews, faster, see Google Business Profile Reviews.
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Yes, even healthcare related businesses are on Yelp! And with a monthly average of 92 million unique mobile users per month, it’s worth claiming your profile. With a Yelp profile, users can view basic information about your business including your history, uploaded photos and videos, services offered, location and hours, and up to 5 other related business recommendations of your choice. Reviews are based on a 5 star system labeled with the technicality of “Eek! Methinks not,” to “Woohoo! As good as it gets.”
Per Yelp’s support center, “Yelp’s recommendation software is designed to highlight reviews from people inspired to share their experiences with the community.” So, while Yelp advises not to ask (and especially not to incentivize) patients to leave reviews, Yelp offers review badges for your website, free “Find Us on Yelp” stickers to display in your office, and the ability to embed favorite reviews on your social media profiles. Just because Yelp is built to run on the “natural flow of reviews,” however, does not mean you should sit back idly. Yelp recommends responding to every review that is posted and staying in touch with patients who reach out to ask questions through the email feature on Yelp.
To dig deeper and get the most of Yelp reviews, visit our Guide to Yelp Reviews.
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With Facebook Recommendations, users can leave reviews and recommendations of a business’ Facebook profile. This is a platform that almost 2 billion people are using every day. And since 1 in 3 people on Facebook use the platform to look for recommendations and reviews anyway, this is a good one to be on top of.
When someone recommends your practice or healthcare clinic through Facebook, visibility is high among patients who are likely to take interest and convert.
As explained by Facebook:
“People can easily indicate if they recommend your business to others by simply answering “Yes” or “No,” and can explain why with tags, text, and photos. By selecting a tag, they can help themes emerge in the feedback from Recommendations, making it easier for potential customers to see what your business is known for.”
If you haven’t already, set up a Facebook Business Page, and get started with our 6 tips to get Facebook Recommendations.
Ready to up your review game? Download our The Complete Guide to Online Reviews for further information on:
- How online reviews integrate into your marketing strategy
- Which review sites your healthcare practice should prioritize
- How your business can collect 100s of new, positive reviews
- How to manage negative reviews
