How to Remove a Yelp Review for Physician

Receiving fake Healthgrades reviews could have grave consequences for your medical exercise. These reviews could shake your patients' trust in your expertise, professionalism, and service. To remove negative or faux reviews from Healthgrades, nosotros recommend taking the following steps:

1. Sympathize HIPAA and other confidentiality obligations earlier proceeding with removal;
2. Assess if the review violates Healthgrades' Community Guidelines;
3. Contact the reviewer offline and offer to resolve the consequence (if they are a existent patient) – this should be done with extreme circumspection;
4. Flag the review by clicking the 'Flag' in the upper correct corner of the review;
5. Report the review using Healthgrades' online contact grade. Yous tin can also email useragreement@healthgrades.com or ​​reviews@healthgrades.com;
6. Pursue legal action to have the review removed by filing a defamation action and obtaining a court society.

At Minc Law, we take seen countless physicians and medical professionals bargain with fake reviews that mischaracterize the reviewer's real experience at a medical office. Sometimes, negative reviews are posted by an individual who was never a patient, just who has a grudge against the physician in question.

Addressing negative medical reviews can quickly become a legal and upstanding minefield, which is why our experienced internet attorneys aid clients class a comprehensive response plan while too navigating HIPAA confidentiality issues.

In this commodity, we discuss the consequences of negative and fake Healthgrades reviews. We demonstrate how to spot fake patient reviews, and how to respond to reviews legally and ethically. We also list several helpful strategies to have fake reviews removed.

Affect of Negative & Fake Healthgrades Reviews on Your Medical Do

In today'due south digital age, most medical patients rely on the cyberspace to decide which healthcare provider to visit. In fact, ninety% of healthcare patients employ online reviews to evaluate providers. And 84% of consumers consider reviews to be as trustworthy equally personal recommendations.

Since online reviews shape customers' decision-making, poor reviews could quickly damage your medical practice.

Mutual Consequences of Poor Medical/Patient Services

Patient service is the most important factor in your medical practice'due south success. The best marketing strategy or pricing policy in the world cannot overcome a dissatisfying patient experience in your office. Over fourth dimension, if not corrected, poor medical services can lead to:

• Bad press,
• Decreased foot traffic and fewer patients overall,
• A decreased lesser line as a result of less business,
• Loss of existing appointments due to cancellations and no-shows/no-calls,
• Long-term patients switching to another medical provider,
• Worsened public view of your medical practice,
• A negative influx of online reviews.

While long await times and unprofessional behavior can immediately turn a patient off, several positive characteristics tin can turn the patient experience into ane worthy of a five-star review.

What Do Patients Wait For in Health Care Services?

When visiting their medical provider, most patients expect to meet the same general attributes. For case, the demeanor of the doctor can make all the departure. A provider who is friendly, chatty, and demonstrates that they care for the patient is usually one who incentivizes a long-term doctor-patient relationship.

In an surroundings where medical professionals are often forced to rush from ane exam room to another, patients want to see that the doctor is willing to take the time to truly listen to the patient's story and give the right amount of attending to their needs. After all, the term 'care' makes up half of the word 'healthcare'.

At Minc Law, one of the almost common complaints we meet is when doctors are perceived as not caring for their patients. A profession that lends itself to stoicism can frequently make patients feel similar a number.

Therefore, medical professionals can frequently avert bad reviews by making their patients feel like they are cared for, whether that is by sending a personal note, post-obit up direct, or simply taking the time to heed and build a rapport with the patient.

At the end of the twenty-four hour period, your patients are consumers, and a large part of running a business—any business—should be determining what your consumers desire.

Minc Law Tip: While you lot may simply exist considering certain aspects of your practice, information technology is crucial to accept your entire practice into account when predicting patient desires. Plenty of doctors have received negative reviews complaining about what was on television in the waiting room or the cleanliness of the edifice. These complaints have nothing to do with the medical service provided to them—simply even so, they contribute to patients' overall experience in the office.

How Fake & Negative Reviews on Healthgrades Can Harm Your Medical Practice

Imitation and negative reviews on Healthgrades tin can expose your practice to regulatory investigations, which, in turn, tin can result in fines and other disciplinary actions.

Negative reviews tin also compound each other. Some users that go out bad reviews add together "If you don't believe me, then look at other bad reviews" to the finish of their posts. This kind of invitation can create unwanted dialogue and references to other bad reviews, and can potentially cause the negative-review floodgates to open up.

And one time a user escapes consequences from posting ane fake negative review, they often experience empowered to write several more than. Therefore, it is important to become out in forepart of such negative attacks.

How Reliable Are Healthgrades Doctor Reviews & Ratings?

Review sites are intended to be resource for consumers to evaluate businesses before doing business with them. Healthgrades itself states that "By providing a trustworthy and transparent review process, Healthgrades empowers patients and providers alike to achieve improve care."

But unfortunately, many medical experts have expressed concern over the reliability of Healthgrades.com's five-star ratings organization—mainly due to its lack of transparency and the methodology backside the reviews.

For instance, data published in the Journal of the American Higher of Surgeons (2010) found significantly different risk-adapted bloodshed rates between a US News and World Report and Healthgrades.com's lists of "Best Hospitals." A similar study in the post-obit year published in the Archives of Surgery affirmed the above discrepancies cited substantive bug and flaws in the assessment and evaluation of mortality rates following specific procedures.

Additionally, there take been reported instances of false physician disciplinary records and information existence posted on Healthgrades.com. A 2016 Consumer Reports article also found an alarming omission of data and disciplinary deportment on Healthgrades.com, ultimately finding Healthgrades failed to include 18 malpractice suits against 1 doctor.

How Practise I Respond to a Negative Healthgrades Review?

Receiving a negative patient review on Healthgrades tin can be upsetting and worrisome. Your outset instinct may be to hitting "Reply" and fire off a defense of your practice or your professional beliefs. Just before yous accept any activeness, we recommend pausing and reviewing what you can—and can not—legally and ethically practise as a physician when responding to negative reviews online.

In the video below, Attorney & Founder Aaron Minc covers 1.) Best practices for how to respond to online patient reviews, two.) When it's time to hire an attorney to aid, three.) How much it costs to hire an attorney to help remove patient reviews, and iv.) Proactive steps you can take to eternalize your medical practice'due south online reputation.

Video: How Medical Professionals Tin Remove & Respond to Negative Patient Reviews

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Can Medical Professionals Respond to Reviews on Healthgrades?

Dissimilar typical businesses that tin respond still they want, physicians and medical organizations are extremely limited in what they can say when responding to a negative or false online review. In short, we DO NOT recommend that physicians answer to online reviews.

Nether the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), the only types of responses to online reviews that healthcare professionals are allowed to brand are elementary statements about general practices and procedures. As a physician or medical system, you lot are prohibited from:

• Acknowledging that an individual was a patient,
• Identifying the patient using their proper name, and
• Discussing individual patient outcomes, procedures, and experiences.

Medical professionals can exist fined for violating HIPAA regulations when responding to online reviews. In 2020, 1 Dallas dental exercise was fined $10,000 for disclosing patient wellness information in response to a negative Yelp review.

You should likewise be enlightened that there are likewise state laws that regulate this area as well; HIPAA is simply the overarching federal police, but many states take medical and consumer privacy regulations that physicians should be careful not to violate.

Also, remember that some reviews are non the most apparent, then you should be careful earlier giving a negative patient review more airtime. Responding to negative reviews can often dilate something that readers would otherwise have with a grain of table salt.

For further guidance, we recommend reading our comprehensive article by attorney Andrew Stebbins explaining how medical professionals can respond to negative patient reviews of doctors.

What Doctors Should Avert When Responding to Online Reviews

If y'all do decide to respond to the poster'south review, y'all must be extremely careful non to violate whatever HIPAA regulations. Do not accost the affiche direct—fifty-fifty past proverb something as simple every bit "Thanks, John" when the poster identifies themselves as such.

It is best to respond only in general terms most your practice's policies and procedures. Keep these tips in listen when interacting with online reviews:

• Never identify a patient by name or use any part of their medical history as facts to refute their claims.
• Avoid responding publicly; it is always all-time to resolve the effect privately, when possible.
• Do non reply impulsively or when you are feeling angry or defensive. Instead, await to compose a response until you have calmed downwardly.
• Do not republish positive reviews on your website without the author's consent.

Avoid Using Restrictive Contracts to Forbid Patients From Leaving Reviews

In contempo years, it has become a tendency for doctors to apply restrictive contracts prohibiting patients from leaving reviews and by and large limiting their power to speak out almost their medical experiences. This practice has not been fully reviewed past courts, just there is guidance that would suggest such a practice could be considered unlawful.

According to the federally enacted Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016, a contract that impedes client reviews is considered void if it "prohibits or restricts" or "imposes a penalty or fee against" an individual for engaging in a written, oral, or pictorial review.

Not-disclosure or copyright provisions in md-patient contracts are a ticking time bomb of a PR nightmare waiting to happen; therefore, we recommend that you avoid such tactics.

Example of a Medical Professional'southward Review Response That Violates HIPAA

Let u.s.a. imagine that a patient calling herself "Jane" has posted a negative patient review claiming that you made her expect over an hour to see her, and then rushed through her date without explaining her diagnosis clearly.

A response that would violate HIPAA might look like this:

"Hi, Jane. Nosotros are pitiful yous had to await for your appointment at our office. Our office was very busy that 24-hour interval due to being brusk-staffed, simply we did our best to become everyone in and out equally efficiently as possible. We were still able to get y'all a flu-shot within 15 minutes of your appointment time and repent nosotros could not get you in and out sooner."

This response addresses the poster by proper noun, and by alleging that Jane is a patient that came to the office and reveals a medical procedure performed on her. Nearly everything about this response could be viewed equally a violation of HIPAA.

Instance of a HIPAA-Compliant Review Response

On the other hand, a HIPAA-compliant response to Jane's post might look like this:

"Thank you for your comments. We know each patient'due south time is valuable, and so we go far our top priority to see each of our patients at the scheduled time of their appointment. Some other ane of our priorities is to be articulate and helpful to all our patients, which is why we carefully go over the results of a visit with them in person, then print education packets for them to take dwelling.

We value your feedback and would love to discuss your concerns further! Please contact our office manager at Xxx-Thirty-XXXX."

This response addresses "Jane'due south" post in general terms by stating the office's policy, but without confirming or denying that she had been in the role at all. It then invites the poster to telephone call the office for a more than in-depth discussion of her particular business.

Include a Disclaimer on Your Website

Since we generally recommend against responding to reviews at all, we also recommend including a disclaimer on your medical practise'south website and pop patient review sites stating that you cannot hash out private patient experiences on the website. Below is a bones disclaimer to use on your medical practice's website:

"Dear Patients,

We greatly value patient feedback and capeesh that online reviews are a useful tool that consumers utilize to brainwash themselves and select medical services.

However, please be aware that equally medical professionals, different other businesses who may respond freely to online reviews, nosotros must provide complete confidentiality to our patients.

That means we are prohibited from responding in whatsoever manner that acknowledges whether someone has been in our care. If you have an result that needs attention, please contact our office directly."

Of class, HIPAA privacy regulations can brand it difficult to report fictitious reviews to platforms like Healthgrades. Physicians must always strive to keep from identifying their patients or releasing whatever protected health information.

What to Do If Your Medical Practice Receives a Negative Review on Healthgrades

If your practise has received a negative or fake review on a platform like Healthgrades, y'all may want to have some or all of the following steps:

• Preserve the review. Take screenshots, print web pages, and certificate the review in whatever way(s) you can.
• Document any evidence of damages caused to your medical practice.
• Human action quickly if the review is of a serious nature. If the post makes serious allegations such as malpractice, harassment, racism, or other discrimination, it is fifty-fifty more of import to have firsthand action.
• Consider leaving the review alone if but a 1-off bad review in a bounding main of skilful reviews.
• Practice great customer service. Demonstrate that yous intendance virtually your patients' satisfaction and well-existence. Invite the poster to come up up with solutions of their ain (for instance, by asking "Is at that place annihilation we can practice to resolve your concern?"). By leaving the dialogue open, you can generate useful dialogue with the reviewer.
• Flag and report the review. This process is addressed in detail beneath.
• Search and monitor like health care review websites for the aforementioned or similar reviews. You will want to determine if the negative review is a coordinated attack or a one-off event.
• Consult your business organisation records to find out if the review is from a real patient or if information technology is simulated (this process is addressed beneath).
• Reach out to an experienced chaser to help you deal with the state of affairs speedily and efficiently. We address this stride in greater particular below.

How to Spot Imitation Reviews on Healthgrades

In this section, we describe why posters would wish to create a fake or negative review, then discuss seven ways to tell if a review has been fabricated.

Reasons Someone Would Write a Fake/Negative Review on Healthgrades

There are a few reasons why a Healthgrades user would consider posting a fake or negative review. If the review is fake, it may be a hit job by a competitor, or information technology could take been posted by an private with a personal reason to attack y'all or your business organisation.

If the review was posted by an actual patient, they may take had a bad experience at your office—or they may just want a refund.

How to Tell if a Healthgrades Review is Fake

It is not always easy to determine whether a mail service on a review platform is based in reality or non.

Because of the anonymous nature of review sites similar Healthgrades, it is easy for posters to create "embellished" versions of their existent experiences to make them sound worse than they were. Or, posters may create completely made stories of a bad experience at your part, when they take never even been a real patient.

Below are several constructive strategies you tin utilize to spot imitation reviews:

i. Consult Your Business Records

Start, if the poster gave their name in the review, information technology should exist simple enough to check your business records and determine if the poster seems to be a existent patient of yours.

Bank check your phone messages and records for any complaints that draw similar stories as laid out in the review. If no one has called your part to complain of a like effect, the review may be fake.

ii. Research the Account Behind the Review

Does it look like the reviewer created their Healthgrades profile on the aforementioned day they posted the review? Have they just reviewed your business and no others? These situations could be red flags that the reviewer is not authentic.

iii. Look for Suspicious Accounts & Usernames

Many fake reviewers hide behind a play on words as their username, such as "Seymore Butts" or "Ben Dover." Or, they may choose a generic first name with an initial, such as "John Due south." These types of usernames could exist a sign that the reviewer was never a real patient.

Questionable usernames may also exist accompanied past a "humorous paradigm" or stock photograph. Conducting a opposite image search on Google is an constructive mode to identify the source from where a profile's flick or avatar was copied.

4. Analyze the Review's Timing

Check the timestamp for the review. If it was posted in the middle of the dark in your customers' time zone, it could be a sign that the review was not posted past a legitimate patient.

5. Is the Review Part of a Big Book of Bad Reviews?

Are you receiving negative reviews on a weekly or monthly ground? Are you lot of a sudden receiving a stream of 1-star reviews when you lot are used to receiving a loftier boilerplate rating? These events could be a sign that the reviews are a coordinated attack on your business.

6. Consider the Language Used

Next, think about how the review itself is worded. Is in that location an unusual amount of grammer errors or typos? Does the review appear to be promoting a competitor? If so, the review may not be from an bodily patient.

7. Look for Signs of a Professional Hit Task

In some rare cases, faux reviews are created by professional person review "hitman" agencies that are hired by a business organization competitor. These agencies are oftentimes located exterior the U.Due south., which means that a good style to spot them is to check for poor use of English.

Hit-job reviews likewise typically use vague language, since the reviewer does not take firsthand knowledge of the target business organisation.

Are Healthgrades Reviews Anonymous?

While Healthgrades does inquire for a poster's name and city and state of origin, identifying personal information is non required in order to leave a review. A poster can exit those sections blank, which will effect in an anonymous review.

How to Remove Faux & Negative Reviews on Healthgrades.com

Spotting a simulated review is merely half the boxing; because of the potential impairment poor reviews could accept on your business, it may get necessary to have that review removed. Below, we discuss strategies for removing fake and damaging reviews on platforms like Healthgrades.

Check to See if the Review Violates Healthgrades Community Review Guidelines

Because review websites like Healthgrades accept their own user agreements and guidelines, information technology is important that all users abide by those rules.

The Healthgrades Customs Guidelines outline the rules for posting reviews, every bit well equally the types of reviews that may be rejected or removed. Healthgrades encourages users to report reviews that appear to violate the guidelines, and the platform reserves the right to reject and remove such content.

Some of the about significant violations include:

• Posting libelous, defamatory, harassing, threatening, or inflammatory content;
• Posting misleading, deceptive or fraudulent content;
• Using obscenities or posting obscene content;
• Expressing intolerance based on race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, age, or inability; and
• Impersonating other individuals or organizations.

How Practise Y'all Remove Negative Reviews From Healthgrades?

Before taking whatsoever farther activeness, it is a good idea to try request the original author to remove the review. If the reviewer is a real patient with a real problem, resolving their complaint could be the simplest solution to having that negative review removed.

Whether it means replying to their review and inviting them to phone call your office, or reaching out to them yourself through other means (if you know who they are), providing excellent customer service can go a long way.

Flag & Study the Review

If cooperating direct with the reviewer is non an selection, your next pace should be to flag and report the review with the corresponding website for a Terms of Service violation. You can do this on your own or with the aid of an attorney.

Healthgrades has an online contact form that you can use to explain the situation:

You can also email useragreement@healthgrades.com or reviews@healthgrades.com straight with your concerns.

Another pick is to flag a review from the review folio. To do this, navigate to the review in question and click Flag in the upper correct corner of the physician review.

Select a reason why you flagged the review and add whatsoever comments that you lot wish, and then click Submit Flag.

As e'er, when reporting reviews, keep HIPAA and confidentiality regulations in listen. Even when making a report to a individual third party, you must e'er exist careful not to reveal identifying or protected medical information nearly a patient.

At Minc Law, when we contact any review site to written report negative or fake content, we make sure to use the platform'south ain linguistic communication to report terms of service or community guidelines violations. Using the language expressed in the platform's own guidelines helps make information technology more likely that the platform will cooperate in reviewing the request and removing the unwanted content.

Consult an Internet Defamation Attorney

Side by side, it may exist helpful to rent an experienced internet attorney to assistance you contact the review platform for flagging and reporting purposes.

Many online platforms have a legal representative, even if that individual is associated with a parent visitor. Experienced net attorneys like those at Minc Police subpoena these platforms often enough that we are familiar with their legal representatives—meaning if nosotros cannot go results directly from customer service or the intake squad, we can often send an email to their legal contact, who will escalate the request and see that it is removed.

Keep in mind that if the state of affairs merits communication betwixt the physician and the medical lath, that process should exist handled by the medical practice's in-house counsel, not an net defamation lawyer.

Pursue Legal Activity

If you demand to accept legal action against an online review, please annotation that federal police force only allows yous to sue the reviewer, not the website. A lawsuit filed against the website volition likely not exist successful because of Department 230 of the Communications Decency Human activity. Department 230 protects websites from being considered the publisher of content authored past others.

If the reviewer you sue was a real patient but is lying about some portion of their actual experience, pursuing legal activeness—such equally filing a lawsuit and/or obtaining a court lodge for the review'south removal—can be a very thorny issue.

Dealing with anonymous fake reviews is a very complicated area of the law, then your attorney should analyze your options on a case-by-case basis to make up one's mind if legal activeness is appropriate. For example, pursuing legal action may not always be worthwhile if the review in question is an outlier, did non crusade meaning damage, and you are otherwise receiving many positive reviews.

It may be fourth dimension to pursue legal action if y'all begin receiving many harmful reviews from seemingly the same source—or if the reviews are serious in nature, such as if they accuse you of:

• Malpractice,
• Harming a patient,
• Engaging in criminal activity,
• Sexual harassment, or
• Racism or other types of discrimination.

In some situations, your attorney may advise filing a defamation suit (or a John Doe lawsuit if the reviewer is anonymous) to facilitate the review's removal. As always, it is important to motility forward with caution regarding HIPAA regulations if the anonymous affiche turns out to be a existent patient. In the video below, nosotros go over the steps of unmasking anonymous online defamers through the filing a John Doe lawsuit.

Video: How to Identify Internet Users Behind Anonymous Harassment & Defamation

Watch

How an Online Defamation Attorney Can Help Remove Faux Reviews

Every bit a physician, your reputation must be one of integrity, professionalism, and expertise—and whether y'all like it or not, online reviews can have a big impact on your well-guarded reputation. It can be difficult to know how to remedy the situation when your do is attacked by malicious and false reviews. Thankfully, y'all do have options.

Even though HIPAA regulations get in difficult to navigate responding to negative posts well-nigh your business, it is yet possible for you lot to place and remove false reviews. Yous can consult your business records, look for the signs of imitation reviewer profiles, and take steps to flag and report the dissentious content to the platform.

You tin can besides consult an experienced net defamation attorney to help you take further activity. At Minc, we have extensive experience working with review platforms, presenting court orders, and even filing defamation lawsuits to have harmful and simulated reviews removed as quickly as possible. Nosotros also possess an arsenal of investigative tools and techniques to identify anonymous reviewers to hold them accountable.

★★★★★

"We were under pressure to resolve an unfavorable Yelp review. Our Minc team was empathetic, efficient and got the job washed rapidly. We now have a lifeline when an on-line review becomes problematic. Many cheers to our wonderful squad!"

Ellen Adams, June 13, 2021

If your medical practise is the target of fake or negative patient reviews, nosotros can help you. To schedule your free, initial no-obligation defamation consultation, call united states at (216) 373-7706 or fill out our contact class online.

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Source: https://www.minclaw.com/remove-fake-negative-reviews-healthgrades/

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