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ONLINE ROI
The ROI of Your
ONLINE REPUTATION
By Lilly Ibarra
As patient expectations change so does the value of a physician’s strategy. The survey also found that an increase in star rating can
online reputation. An accurate, positive online reputation now be tied to an increase in revenue—a one star increase equated to
translates into new patients and increased revenue. An inaccurate a 9 percent increase in revenue.
one can result in lost opportunities and might even impact your
practice’s long term success. If you haven’t taken the time to check out your online reputa-
tion, make 2016 the year that you do. It’s easy to get a sense of
Most physician rating and review sites get their initial infor- where you are listed and the accuracy of your listings by doing a
mation from the Physician Blue Book. This information is simple Google search. You’ll quickly see how many listings are out
often out of date or becomes so quickly. It can also be lacking there and how many of them have inaccuracies or missing infor-
crucial items like your website address. Finding and correcting mation as well as those that have reviews or ratings already. You
listings on these and other sites like Yelp improves your overall can update these all manually, but that can take a lot of time and
search rankings, supports better search engine optimization effort. Same goes for increasing positive online reviews. Today,
(SEO) for your practice website, and makes it easier for patients there are practice marketing platforms that can help you do both
to find you. much faster and more effectively.
You might be saying to yourself that you get most of your pa- Updating these sites and increasing reviews will also help with
tients through word of mouth and referrals from other patients. your search engine rankings. When you do your Google search
This could be true, but today patients who get referrals from you should do some searches using common search terms for
friends and family, checkout the physician online before book- which you would want to be found. For example, you want to
ing. In fact, according to Google almost 80 percent of patients show up first for OB/GYN in Austin, TX. So search for OB/GYN
conduct an online search before booking an appointment. So it Austin TX and see where you show up. If your ranking is low, up-
is critically important that you can be found, your information dating your online profiles and adding your website and social
is accurate and up to date, and that you have positive reviews media pages will help. Increasing your positive online reviews can
from existing patients. help here as well.
Why do you need the reviews in addition to listings? Because Updating and improving your online reputation plays a much
prospective patients trust them, maybe even more than the referral bigger role today in recruiting new patients, generating revenue,
from their friend. And they can translate directly into revenue. and staying successful. There are other things you can do to
Professor Michael Luca at Harvard Business School published a strengthen your online presence but online listings and reviews
study, Reviews, Reputation, and Revenue: The Case of Yelp.com. are as a good a place to start as any. It probably won’t be long be-
He found shows that where Yelp reviews penetrated a local mar- fore you start to see your practice rise in your search engine rank-
ket, the business of chain restaurants declined because consumers ings and find new patients booking appointments as well.
began trying more independent businesses as they gained confi-
dence about their quality. This points to an opportunity for in- Lilly Ibarra is a regional solutions consultant with Kareo in San
dependent practices to compete effectively against larger health Antonio. She has been in the industry for six years helping clients
systems by embracing an aggressive and effective positive reviews reach their financial goals.
42 San Antonio Medicine • May 2016
