Navigating healthcare review sites and finally choosing the right doctor can be an overwhelming task. Search engines like GOOGLE, YAHOO and Bing are brilliant at delivering the vast array of information online in tidy searches, but the sheer volume of information can both inform and confuse. Most patients need a place to start, and for many, the best place is with an old fashioned conversation.
A comment from a woman in an online healthcare review forum sums up many people’s thoughts on choosing a doctor:
“… I am generally so nervous about medical and dental that I won’t pick from a website or a list from my insurance provider. I ask friends, co-workers, and relatives for recommendations and then look the doctor up for reviews, and see if that person is on the list of those covered by my insurance.”
Patient referrals are increasing in the age of medical marketing. Women looking for a minimally invasive gynecological specialist may rely on their OB/GYN for a referral, but some are more apt to rely on recommendations from a friend. Those can be face-to-face friends, or friends made through support groups for various gynecological conditions. When a woman who suffers for a long time meets other women who have suffered the same condition with the similar symptoms, the credibility of those relationships goes way up.
Today, so much content is shared on social, email, and text via mobile devices, its important to have a strong online presence as a doctor so that you are where patients can find you.
In the office or online, Dr. Paul MacKoul wants to be where patients can find him.
At The Center for Innovative GYN Care, we encourage all of our patients to give feedback on doctor review sites, and we also provide them with easy ways to provide patient referrals. No matter what social media platform a patient prefers, we are there. You can find us on our own website, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and WordPress.
One of the first places patients go after getting a personal recommendation is to an online doctor review site. The top review sites are RateMDs and Vitals. These sites have the most credibility, as they allow patients to leave comments in addition to ranking performance. At a glance, you can get an overall sense of a physician’s performance, and then if you want to learn more, the comments take you further into the entire patient experience.
Approximately 50 percent of all new patients at The Center for Innovative GYN Care say that they visited either a review site or innovativegyn.com before scheduling an appointment. That’s a huge number of people going online to see what we are saying, and what others have said about us. These are people who will most likely return to the sites to leave their own feedback.
Dr. Paul MacKoul reviews are available on RateMDs, Vitals, UCompareHealthCare, Wellness, Google+ and others.
In addition to The Center for Innovative GYN social media sites above, you can also find insights from Dr. MacKoul on his own Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr and WordPress pages.
When you are ready, you can also book a consultation at innovativegyn.com.
Schedule a consultation to learn more about how we can treat your condition today.
