Nowadays you can be bombarded on a daily basis with review requests from every aspect of your life – your last taxi ride, hotels, food takeaways, even airport toilet cleanliness! How many of these do you actually respond to? Probably not many, but how often do you base your decision about such services on reviews? Probably every single time.
As every other service we consume shifts more so to the digital sphere, healthcare is no exception. We are now able to talk to a doctor or consultant via video chat or private messaging, and we can even order our prescriptions online from the comfort of our home. So as we look for our healthcare online, reviews are what will inevitably help make up our minds when it comes to choosing the ‘best knee surgeon’, for example.
The benefits of these reviews are not just for patients, but they are invaluable for doctors and clinics too. Collecting patient feedback allows doctors to know exactly how patients feel about their care, and it allows them to improve on many aspects of the care they give.
Here are some more reasons why you might want to review your doctor…
1. To improve the care you get
Without understanding the patient experience from patients themselves, healthcare providers can only take a stab in the dark to determine what it is about their service they need to change or improve. Having feedback directly from the patients they’ve cared for is undeniably the best way to gain patient insight. It’s also a good way to get a sense of what patients value the most – whether it’s short waiting times, good bedside manner, thoroughness, or professionalism.
2. To feel empowered
There is nothing worse than feeling like no one hears you or listens to what you have to say. This can be especially tricky when you’re in a strange setting that you might not feel at ease in, such as a doctor’s clinic. So when a doctor or clinic reaches out to you for feedback, it’s the perfect opportunity to use your voice and be heard!
3. To gain trust with your doctor
When you see your doctor or a specialist, it can be difficult to feel as though you can speak freely, beyond the prescribed questions given to you. If you felt that you were not satisfied with an element of your experience, you might not feel you can say this outright to the doctor. However, ideally, you should feel as though your relationship with your doctor is more than just responding to their questioning. You should feel comfortable in asking questions, airing your doubts and even offering critique. After all, doctors are there to treat and diagnose you, and to provide you with care. If that care is not reaching your needs or expectations, you need to be able to tell your doctor that. Reviews then can offer a way of communicating such feedback.
4. To help other patients
Reviews are undeniably valuable to doctors, but they are especially helpful to other potential patients. After all, when you’re choosing a doctor, seeing other reviews can help you to make your decision to either make an appointment at all, which for some people is the first hurdle, or to choose a different doctor if the reviews aren’t reassuring. Like a personal recommendation, reviews can present a version of this to other patients online.
How can you review your doctor?
This will depend on how you booked your appointment, with whom and at what clinic. You may be asked after your appointment to put pen to paper, receive a follow-up SMS the next day, or more conveniently, you might be asked via email. For example, if you’ve booked your appointment or e-Consultation with Top Doctors, your doctor can, with your permission, email you with a fast and simple online questionnaire. This is not only convenient, but it also ensures that all our reviews come from genuine, verified patients.
So, next time you see your doctor or a specialist, and they ask you for a review, you can either give the gift of appreciation with a positive review, or if you genuinely feel there is room for improvement, give the even greater gift of feedback!
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