How Online Reviews Fail Physicians

The rise of online reviews has transformed how we evaluate everything from restaurants to service providers. While these systems are convenient and empowering for consumers, their application in healthcare raises unique challenges — particularly for physicians. Reviews on search engines — like Google, for example — appear to have unintentionally created a system that can harm the very professionals patients rely on for care.

Physicians are one of the few professional groups subject to public ratings on aspects of service that often fall far outside their control. While transparency and feedback are essential in any industry, the current model of online reviews does not account for the complexity of the healthcare experience. This results in a distorted portrayal of a physician’s performance, undermining trust, damaging reputations, and contributing to burnout.

Key Challenges Physicians Face With Online Reviews

There are several issues specific to healthcare when it comes to online reviews:

• Unfair accountability: Physicians are frequently held responsible for systemic issues like long wait times, administrative inefficiencies, or billing errors — factors over which we have little to no control. Yet, these factors heavily influence patient reviews.
• Lack of context and verification: Many online search engines and other platforms do not verify whether a reviewer actually interacted with the physician. Patients often conflate dissatisfaction with administrative processes or facility conditions with the care they received, leading to unfair criticism.
• Reputational harm: A single negative review, regardless of its validity, can have an outsized impact on a physician’s reputation. In a field where trust is paramount, such damage is difficult to repair.
• Emotional toll: Constant exposure to public criticism — much of it irrelevant, misleading, or lacking in context — takes a significant emotional toll on physicians, contributing to burnout in a profession already strained by high demands.

Opportunities for Review System Improvements

Many leading platforms already implement systems to ensure feedback is meaningful and fair. Facebook, for example, allows corporate pages to disable or limit reviews, recognizing the need for moderation. However, search engines often fail to offer this option to businesses, and may not moderate reviews closely.

Verification of reviewer authenticity is another area for improvement. In industries such as retail and hospitality, companies like Airbnb and Tripadvisor have implemented systems requiring proof of purchase or booking. These safeguards ensure that reviews reflect real interactions. Similarly, software companies often use verified surveys to solicit specific, actionable feedback from users. If search engines were to implement such verification processes for healthcare reviews, it would help ensure that reviews are coming from real patient experiences.

In addition, tailored feedback systems could be adopted to address the complexity of the healthcare experience. For instance, search engines could allow patients to provide separate ratings for clinical care, administrative efficiency, and facility cleanliness. This segmentation would provide a more nuanced and accurate assessment of the overall patient experience.

What Needs to Change

Search engines have the opportunity to lead the way in creating a more balanced and equitable review system for healthcare professionals. To start, implementing segmented feedback would allow patients to evaluate distinct aspects of their healthcare experience. A patient could rate the quality of medical care separately from the facility’s administrative efficiency, ensuring that physicians are not unfairly penalized for issues beyond their control.

Verification systems should also be introduced. Patients leaving reviews should be required to confirm their interaction with a physician through an appointment record or similar mechanism. This would prevent reviews by individuals with no genuine basis for their feedback.

Finally, enhanced moderation practices are essential. Search engines could develop stronger safeguards to identify and address reviews that are irrelevant, misleading, or abusive. For example, reviews containing discriminatory language or irrelevant complaints about billing systems should be flagged and removed.

How Hospitals and Advocacy Groups Can Help

Hospitals, professional organizations, and advocacy groups have a critical role to play in addressing the challenges posed by online reviews. Advocacy efforts should focus on working with search engines to implement fairer and more transparent review systems. By engaging directly with these companies, the healthcare community can push for changes such as segmented feedback and verification systems.

In addition to advocacy, hospitals and organizations should provide education and training for physicians on how to address reviews constructively. This could include workshops on responding professionally to negative feedback and using patient comments to improve practice operations.

Finally, public or practice-driven messaging campaigns can raise awareness about the unique challenges of reviewing healthcare providers. Patients should be encouraged to leave thoughtful, constructive reviews that focus on the quality of care received rather than unrelated frustrations.

A Call for Balanced Evaluation

Healthcare is deeply personal, and feedback is invaluable for improving care. However, the current review system risks distorting the reality of a physician’s dedication and expertise. By implementing thoughtful changes, search engines can ensure that reviews are not only fair and accurate but also reflective of the complex nature of healthcare delivery.

Physicians deserve a system that evaluates their work fairly. Patients deserve a system that informs them accurately. It’s time we worked together to create one.

Adnan Imdad Khan, MD, is a neurologist in New Hampshire.