Use psychology to manage negative patient reviews

Editor’s Note: Welcome to Medical Economics’ blog section which features contributions from members of the medical community. These blogs are an opportunity for bloggers to engage with readers about a topic that is top of mind, whether it is practice management, experiences with patients, the industry, medicine in general, or healthcare reform. The opinions expressed here are that of the authors and not UBM / Medical Economics.
I recently read Gloria Kim, MD’s excellent essay “How Yelp made me a better doctor,” a runner-up in the Medical Economics 2018 Physician Writing Contest. Kim, an OB/GYN, was devastated when a patient wrote a scathing review of her on Yelp. Kim had provided thorough, caring service for a patient and had certainly done nothing to warrant the fury that emanated from the review, “skewering everything about me and my office with vehement gusto.”