Restricting reviews: Undermining trust before the visit starts
The WSJ’s Health Blog reports that some physicians are making patients sign a contract that requires them to ask for permission prior to grading that physician online.
While there are problems with current rating systems, the message such a contract sends to new patients, in my mind, is much worse. It comes across as defensive and uncaring– whereas asking for feedback on how they could improve their practice would serve the same purpose and significantly reduce the true complaints that make it out to the web.
There are a number of issues around sample size, anonymity, agendas, etc with the current rating tools, but given that physician practices gain patients through word of mouth, proactively muzzling one of the means of spreading that word seems enormously counterproductive.
The new consumer-focused world is not one where doctor knows best…physicians would be better suited to spend their energy working to provide better service for those who come to them in times of need–after all, doctors have sworn to serve, not to be served. Some of us appear to have forgotten this…
