HealthGrades reviews can help you manage your brand and patient interactions.

When you’re putting your health and the health of your loved ones in someone else’s hands, you want that someone to be a medical professional in their field. Your potential patients carry the same mindset when they’re seeking out your services and are willing to put in the research to find a quality match—starting with your HealthGrades reviews.

More patients are looking online to find their healthcare providers than ever before. In the United States, a surprising 94% of patients use online reviews to evaluate doctors, with the majority of them using reviews as the first step in their search. If your current reviews can help you make a good impression, you could have a new patient headed your way.

HealthGrades is one of the most-used resources for patients when evaluating doctors, hospitals, and urgent cares, drawing over one million active users every single day. By learning more about the leading review site for the medical industry, you can stand out with the best ratings possible.

How does HealthGrades work?

HealthGrades compiles trusted data and government records to create its massive directory of over three million providers. This data is then used to create your HealthGrades listing, which tells patients any relevant information they can find about you. This may include information about:

Where you’re located
What insurance you accept
Your education and credentials
Services you can provide, including your specialties

Because HealthGrades pulls its listing of healthcare providers from the government’s National Provider Identifier (NPI) Registry, you’ll already be on the website if you’re on the NPI list. Much like Google and Yelp listings, your HealthGrades listing doesn’t have to be claimed to be live and receiving visits each day.

However, leaving your HealthGrades profile unclaimed means you’re leaving outdated information about your practice unedited. In addition, your patients may already be leaving positive and negative reviews that are all going by unnoticed.

Claiming your HealthGrades profile

With HealthGrades offering free profiles to all healthcare professionals, there’s really no reason not to claim your listing. And it’s easy to do.

Here are the steps to claim your profile if you already have a listing on the website:

Head to the account registration page on HealthGrades.com.
Search for your name and city, then click on your listing.
Select “I am the provider.”
Enter your email address and desired password.
Agree to the user agreement and tap “Register Now.”

Before you edit your profile, HealthGrades will require you a verification of your identity and inform you of how to provide it.

When you claim your profile, you’ll gain a better way to market yourself the way you want to be seen. Specifically, your HealthGrades access lets you do the following:

Upload a photo: Replacing your default silhouette icon with a professional profile photo will help you stand out in the HealthGrades search tool. Your profile photo will also provide a real face for your potential patients to trust.
Edit your profile information: Beyond editing your profile for accuracy, you can also add your care philosophy. This can act as your value proposition that draws in patients by telling them how you can uniquely help them.
Respond to reviews: Once your profile is completed, you can respond to any HealthGrades reviews already on your profile or commit to responding in the future.

Remember that HealthGrades creates its listings based on providers in the NPI registry. If you are not currently listed on HealthGrades’ directory, you won’t be able to create a new provider profile. Instead, you must first register with the government for an NPI number.

HealthGrades patient review factors

When you scroll down on your HealthGrades profile, you may see that you already have an average star rating, an average wait time, and a set of star ratings for seven additional factors. This is because HealthGrades reviews offer users the opportunity to add ratings about specific parts of their visit to best display what areas you excel in.

The seven specific factors that you can be rated on are your:

Patients’ trust in your decisions
Ability to explain conditions well
Ability to listen and answer questions
Amount of time spent with your patient
Ease of appointment scheduling
Office environment (cleanliness and comfort)
Staff (friendliness and courteousness)

With these factors in mind, you’ll have a set of criteria you can use to improve customer service and patient satisfaction. As a result, you’ll organically gain more positive reviews and improve your online reputation as a healthcare professional.

How to manage HealthGrades reviews

The percentage of people expecting responses to their online reviews is steadily on the rise. In fact, many studies have found that over 50% of reviewers are now expecting responses within several days of their posts.

While responding to positive reviews is easy—a genuine thank-you message works well—knowing what to do when you’re faced with a negative review, or even a fake review, is an equally important part of your online reputation management.

Negative reviews

Getting a negative review can be tough, but there are two great paths you can take.

First, if you believe a review violates HealthGrades Community Review Guidelines, you’ll actually be able to flag it to be reviewed and potentially taken down by the platform. Violations include particularly hateful, vulgar, misleading, or discriminatory language.

Second, if the HealthGrades review is not in violation, respond as professionally and objectively as possible, since arguing or aggressively defending yourself will only drive potential patients away. Always show respect for the reviewer’s opinion and show that you’ve taken it into consideration. In addition, it’s always good practice to thank negative reviewers for their feedback.

Remember that even if your patient is spewing information about their treatment on the web, it’s best not to address their specific case directly on HealthGrades. This will ensure that you stay in compliance with HIPAA. If the contents of a review require you to mention additional details to further the conversation, respond generally and take the interaction offline.

Fake reviews

If you receive a HealthGrades review that you believe to be fake, you can flag the review to the company by selecting the “Flag Comment” button at the top right-hand corner of the review. False reviews are a violation of HealthGrade’s guidelines and can be taken down.

However, we do recommend providing as much detail as possible about the reasons for your suspicions when prompted in the flagging process. If a review seems pretty legitimate and HealthGrades doesn’t have solid evidence, their hands can be tied.

Earn more five-star reviews

The more five-star HealthGrades reviews you gain, the more potential patients will take notice. When you’re looking to improve your online reputation and become one of the most trusted healthcare providers in your market, there’s never anything wrong with simply asking. If you’re already providing quality care, you can easily turn positive experiences into online reviews.

With Podium Reviews, asking your patients to provide reviews on numerous review sites is even easier. This tool will help you send HIPAA-compliant review invites to any of your patients, all on a centralized messaging hub that helps you respond easily, too.