Impact of Social Media

A rather scathing blog about the patient’s perception of what transpired during what appears to be a bad outcome often shows up on review sites such as yelp.com and others.  Its unfortunate that freedom of speech protects writers of such statements and its difficult for doctors to defend themselves.  If there is a respond section, a doctor should always identity themselves and give their side of the story.  If the doctor saw it coming (unhappy patient), it would behoove that doctor to take whatever steps are necessary to convert that patient into a happy patient, and being fair about what additional costs the patient is looking at.  If its truly false, a doctor can hire an attorney to have it removed through the courts.   But if its not, all you can do is try to overwhelm the bad review with many good ones.

Social media is here to stay and a generation of patients are depending on it to find out about providers/services/doctors and slowly replacing word of mouth.  If you don’t change with the times, you will forever live in the past.