How to handle negative patient reviews in Singapore
It is a time when the voices of consumers have constantly amplified thanks to all the different review sites and social networks. Local Consumer Review Survey 2022 has shown that in 2021, 77% of the consumers 'always' or 'regularly' read them when browsing for local businesses, which is up from 60% in 2020.
The Healthcare industry is no exception. More than ever, patients actively research online and look for information that helps them to choose clinics and private practitioners. A growing number of prospective patients rely on online reviews when choosing a healthcare service
Survey has shown that 71% of patients check out online reviews as the first step to finding a new clinic or a new doctor. Even with a referral or a recommendation from a healthcare professional, 92% of patients surveyed always or often do online research to validate the choice. Healthcare is also one of the top three business types consumers pay the most attention to reviews for.
Online reviews build up your clinic’s online reputation, which is often the first impression you make on potential patients. But don’t forget, a large part of your clinic’s reputation is based on how well you respond to these comments and ratings, especially those negative ones. This article will bring you through the importance of responding to negative reviews, and the best practices on how to respond to them.
Why should you respond to patient reviews?
While online reviews serve as a powerful tool for consumers, they can also serve businesses to improve their ratings. A Harvard Business Review study found that improved ratings of businesses can be directly linked to management responses to online reviews, no matter good or bad.
According to the study, that increase in ratings is partly due to how much people want to avoid confrontation. Customers who see previous management responses could decide not to leave unsubstantiated bad reviews to avoid online interaction with the manager, which might be potentially uncomfortable.
Besides, being responsive to your patients’ feedback can only leave a good impression on your clinic. According to the Local Consumer Review Survey 2022, 89% of consumers are 'highly' or 'fairly' likely to use a business that responds to all of its online reviews.
So should you respond to those negative reviews? Yes of course! Regardless of whether the negative reviews your clinic has got are unfair or not, the clinic’s reputation is affected negatively. You cannot control what your patients write about you online, but you can control how to respond to those comments and turn it into an opportunity to improve your branding and build up patient relationships.
How important are the negative patient reviews?
There are 2 types of negative reviews online
The good negative reviews - Genuine patients who had a bad experience with your clinic
The bad negative reviews - Internet trolls or competitors trying to defame you
The good negative reviews
Believe it or not, the first type of negative review is essential for your clinic business. They give you a sense of the areas your services need to improve on and the needs or expectations of your patients that are left unmet. It can be poor communications between clinic staff and patients, bad patient care or service, long waiting time, poor clinic hygiene, or simply the patients having a bad day, etc.
The only downside is the obvious lower star ratings online. But of course, if you want the perfect ratings and reviews, you have to earn it.
For the prospective patients, these negative reviews at least show that your products and services are authentic, and the reviews are genuine. Whether they will thus choose your clinic, however, depends on how well you respond to the negative reviews to earn their trust. A well-drafted response that addresses the issue will not only help you earn back the confidence of the reviewer in your clinic, but also increase the likelihood that the prospective patients will choose your services because they see you as an accountable, credible, and responsible healthcare service provider who does care about the patients.
Most patients can tell if the negative review is legit or simply being unreasonable, how you respond to the review can earn the trust of new patients. But the key here is that you must respond to all negative reviews.
Want to get more 5 star ratings?
Check out this guide on improving patient care quality to help you provide better patient care and get better reviews!
The bad negative reviews
The second type of negative patient reviews is the inevitable internet trolls and competitors who simply want to defame you. These are the worst type of negative reviews simply because they always give 1 star which can significantly bring down the overall review ratings.
Most of the second type of negative reviews have never been to your clinic. They leave a review for the single purpose of defaming you.
For these types of reviews, report the review and submit a removal request to have them removed.
How to respond to negative patient reviews with compliance to HIPAA in Singapore?
A poorly drafted response will get seen by 89% of your potential patients, many of whom will use that information to judge whether they will choose your services.
Most importantly, HIPAA makes it tricky to respond to the negative reviews left by patients who identify themselves as recipients of your clinic’s services and reveal information about their diagnosis and treatment in their reviews or comments.
HIPAA prohibits healthcare providers from revealing patients’ protected health information (PHI), which includes more than a patient’s medical history, but any information that can identify a patient during their care. PHI includes basic information such as name, phone number, email address or birthdate, appointment dates or times, diagnosis or test results.
Accidentally revealing PHI when responding to your patient reviews will put you at risk of penalties.
So how to respond in a way that leverages the negative reviews to grow your brand and improve your patients’ satisfaction, and at the same time is HIPAA compliant?
Here are five Do’s and five Don’ts to help you!
the 5 do’s and don’ts when handling negative patients online in Singapore
Do’s:
1. Respond quickly.
Preferably, you should reply within 24 hours to show your commitment as a healthcare provider who cares. Patients generally expect to receive a resolution when they are upset, and the longer you leave the issue unaddressed, the more it may appear you do not care.
2. Show your appreciation for the feedback.
All feedback is valuable – good or bad. Patient reviews shed light on the areas of improvement for your practices. Make sure you start your response by thanking them for the review.
3. Keep it anonymous and reference policy – remain carefully vague in your response.
Usual businesses should always address negative reviews by owning up to the issues. But as a healthcare practitioner, you should not say sorry or admit fault when replying to online patient reviews. Make sure you do not acknowledge the reviewers were patients or they visited your clinic without their explicit permission.
4. Take it offline.
Unlikely you can resolve the patient’s issue simply by vaguely replying online. Fix it by moving the conversation offline. Invite them to contact you and provide contact information in your response to follow up and discuss specifics privately with the patient.
5. Be concise.
When it comes to responding to negative patient reviews as a healthcare practitioner, less is more. The longer your response, the more likely you are to overshare protected information or appear defensive in a way that legitimises the complaint. Understand and address fully your patient’s concerns when discussing them offline.
Don’ts:
1. Don’t ignore the genuine negative patient reviews.
The worst way to handle negative patient reviews is to move on as if nothing has happened. Think of the negative reviews as opportunities to see some real shortcomings in your practice and improve from there. These are the opportunities to turn unhappy patients into happy ones and potentially build up an accountable image that can attract more patients.
2. Don't ask your patients to delete the reviews.
No practice is perfect to satisfy every patient. If you have zero negative reviews, your prospective patients will question your authenticity. Survey has shown that 95% of consumers suspected foul play or censorship when there aren’t any bad reviews.
Don’t ever delete negative reviews - instead, use them wisely as tools to build up your legitimacy and demonstrate your thoughtful patient services. Unless the reviews are fake, from internet trolls or competitors. Then you can submit a removal request or report the review.
3. Don't get personal.
Sometimes the negative patient reviews could get over-dramatic, but don’t take it personally. Keep empathetic and show your understanding - your patients were venting their frustrations. Don’t retaliate because that will make your patients think that you only care about your image and don’t care about improving their experiences. Most importantly, stay away from PHI in your responses that can lead to HIPAA violations.
4. Don't use canned responses.
If you respond to each of your reviews with a templated response, it only shows your laziness and inauthenticity. Respond to each review with varied nuances to show that you are drafting each message seriously and genuinely, which only improves your online reputation.
5. Don’t address your patients directly.
Again, stay HIPAA compliant. Non-specific nouns such as “our patients” and “any patient” should be your go-to substitutes to address “You”, “She”, and “He” in your responses. Focus on presenting facts about your practices when managing the narrative. Always keep your response generic, express concern and move the conversation offline to resolve the issue.
Conclusion
Negative reviews surely are unavoidable, and HIPAA indeed complicates the process of handling patient reviews in Singapore. However, it is possible to show your patients that they are heard without violating HIPAA by adhering to the above-mentioned rules of thumb.
In the era when businesses tend to feel a diminished sense of control over their online reputation, actively and accountably responding to negative patient reviews definitely helps to shape your clinic’s online reputation positively.
Use this article as a starting point, and start on your clinic’s reputation management plan.