Insights › Retention
Prospective surgical patients read reviews with unusual care. A steady stream of recent, specific reviews influences both local ranking and the decision itself — and a single mishandled response can do more damage than the original complaint.
A practice with four hundred reviews and nothing in the last year looks worse than one with eighty that are current. Build review generation into the patient journey as a recurring process rather than an occasional campaign.
Immediately post-op is usually wrong — patients are swollen, uncomfortable and not yet seeing results. A few weeks out, once they're pleased with the outcome, produces both more responses and better ones. Automate the trigger, but keep the ask personal.
Google carries the most weight for local search. RealSelf is specific to aesthetics and carries real influence with patients researching procedures. Yelp and Healthgrades matter to a lesser degree. Concentrate effort rather than spreading it — Google first.
This is where practices create real exposure. Responding to a review by confirming someone was a patient, or discussing their treatment, can disclose protected health information — even when the reviewer disclosed it first, and even when the review is inaccurate.
Safe responses acknowledge the feedback generally, express a desire to resolve it, and move the conversation offline to a phone number. Nothing that confirms treatment, dates, or clinical detail. Regulators have pursued practices over exactly this.
Respond promptly and calmly. A measured, professional reply reassures the far larger number of prospective patients reading it. Defensive or argumentative responses persuade nobody, and a public dispute with a patient is read as a warning sign regardless of who's right.
Where a review violates platform policy — it's fake, it's from a competitor, it contains personal attacks — report it through the proper channel. Removal isn't guaranteed and the process is slow.
Don't buy reviews. Don't incentivize positive ones. Don't gate — asking only happy patients while suppressing others — the FTC has been explicit that review suppression is a deceptive practice. Don't let staff post reviews.
Recurring themes in reviews are free operational diagnostics. Repeated mentions of wait times, of difficulty reaching the office, of feeling rushed during a consult — those are the same problems suppressing your conversion rate, showing up somewhere you can finally see them.
We run growth marketing for plastic surgery practices nationwide, and rent licensed operating rooms across South Florida. Tell us which problem you have.