Boost your reputation: Strategies for doctors to get 5-star patient reviews

Choosing a new healthcare provider can be overwhelming. With more options available than ever, the healthcare consumer’s journey often begins online — 79% of people look online often or sometimes to find out about doctors and medical care, according to Tebra’s 6th annual Patient Perspectives survey.

In a crowded digital space, positive online reviews are a powerful differentiator. 69% of patients say that positive online reviews are extremely or very important when choosing a healthcare provider. These reviews build trust, offering the social proof patients need to see that your practice will deliver the level of care and professionalism they expect.

Below, we discuss why medical practice reviews and ratings are essential to reputation management, practice growth, and your comprehensive practice marketing strategy. We also discuss simple strategies to get more of them. Here’s what we’ll cover:

Patient reviews are a part of reputation marketing for doctors that impacts the success of your practice.

Patients act like skilled consumers when it's time to choose a new provider. They don't just glance at your star rating, but actively evaluate your reputation based on 3 key factors: the quality, recency, quantity of your online reviews.

Here's a breakdown of what matters to potential patients and why these factors are critical to your healthcare marketing and practice growth:

Beyond impressing patients directly, a strong review profile improves your visibility on search engines. Google’s local search algorithm rewards businesses based on relevance, distance, and prominence. Your review quantity and recency are key signals for prominence because they indicate that your practice is notable and trustworthy in your community, which helps you rank higher.

A consistent flow of patient feedback delivers more than just a higher star rating. It also translates into tangible business results that directly impact your practice's growth and operations.

The best way to get more patient reviews is the simplest: ask for them.

It's common to worry that asking for feedback is intrusive or will lead to negative feedback. But the data says otherwise. According to BrightLocal, fully 96% of consumers are open to writing a review of a business.

Patients are also more likely to share positive feedback. In the past year, consumers were nearly 6 times more likely to write about a positive experience (35%) than a negative one (6%), according to BrightLocal.

Most satisfied patients are willing to help, but just need you to prompt them to do so. The key is to make the process easy and straightforward. A low-pressure request is all it takes to turn a positive visit into a powerful 5-star review.

Integrate your request for feedback at key touchpoints along the patient journey. The key is to make it both easy and convenient.

In addition to the ask itself, create an environment where happy patients feel inspired to talk about their experience with your practice. Here's how:

Asking for reviews in person is a great start, but it's not very scalable. Staff get busy, patients are in a rush, and opportunities get missed. Automating the ask for patient reviews solves this challenge, and turns review collection from a manual task to an efficient, hands-off system that just works. 

Reputation management software integrates with your practice management system to create this seamless workflow:

Adopting this automated process saves significant administrative time for your staff, ensures every patient receives a consistent and professional request, and improves the overall patient experience by making feedback easy and low-pressure.

HIPAA compliance doesn't have to be complicated. The top rule to remember is to never publicly acknowledge a reviewer's patient status or share any details related to their care. Whether you're asking for or responding to feedback, keep all communication general.

The same advice applies when responding to patient feedback. Avoid sharing any personal details about the visit. Just thank the individual for their feedback and move on. 

Staying on top of your online reviews is essential for online reputation management in real time.

You can manage your reviews manually by claiming your practice profiles on all key sites (like Google, Yelp, Healthgrades, and Facebook) and enabling notifications. While this ensures you're alerted to new activity, it requires you to juggle multiple platforms, making the process time-consuming and fragmented.

The more streamlined approach is to use a reputation management platform. A tool like Tebra saves significant time by consolidating feedback from across the web into a single dashboard. This provides a central hub where you can efficiently monitor and respond to every review in one place.

A negative review can feel like a public attack, and your first instinct might be to ignore it. But a strategic response can be a powerful reputation management tool. It's a chance to demonstrate your practice's professionalism and commitment to patient care.

It's also a change to win back a patient. Tebra’s patient survey found that 78% of patients would return to a practice if it addressed their concerns from a negative review.

Responding to negative reviews doesn’t have to be complicated. Here’s what to keep in mind: 

Your online reputation is one of your practice's most valuable assets. It directly influences patient acquisition, builds trust, and fuels business growth. 

Building a stronger reputation requires a proactive system: consistently generating new feedback through an automated process and responding thoughtfully to every review, both positive and negative. By making reputation management a core part of your practice operations, you create a reliable engine for attracting new patients and strengthening your connection with your community. 

Ready to take the next step to streamline your reputation management? Book a Tebra demo today.

The best software integrates with your practice management system to fully automate review requests. Look for a tool like Tebra that also consolidates all your reviews from across the web into a single dashboard for easy monitoring and response.

Prioritize your Google Business Profile, as it has the biggest impact on local search visibility. After that, ensure your practice is claimed and actively monitored on key healthcare-specific sites like Healthgrades and on general directories like Yelp.

Managing your reputation manually is free but also very time-consuming. Most tools are a monthly subscription. Pricing often depends on the number of providers or locations at your practice and the specific features included, such as automated requests, intelligent follow-ups, and detailed analytics.