3 Ways to Generate Positive Patient Reviews as a Doctor

It’s no secret that in today’s day in age, patients are biased towards doctors who have a positive online reputation.

I haven’t met with any doctor who doesn’t think online reviews are important. However, many doctors unintentionally treat reviews almost as an afterthought, at least until they receive a negative one.

Because online reviews are essential to your success, it’s worth being intentional about generating positive reviews from the beginning.

Here are three ways for doctors to generate positive patient reviews.

1). Provide 5 Star Service to Your Patients

This may be considered a “BFO” (blinding flash of the obvious), but the first and best strategy in generating positive reviews as a doctor is to provide world-class service to your patients.

As a doctor, it can be extremely challenging to keep patients happy, whether that’s due to wait times, unrealistic expectations, payment issues, or a number of other factors. But, when you are with them one-on-one in consult, you have a golden opportunity to connect well with these patients.

The reality is, bedside manner is very important when it comes to patient satisfaction. Even if you’re the best in your field, patients are very sensitive to how you make them feel. Make the patients feel understood and cared for, and you’ll generate more positive reviews.

2). Drive Patients to Your Google My Business Listing

A lot of review sites matter, but I believe that the reviews on your Google My Business listing are the most important.

These listings will show up both when patients search for you by name and (if you’ve configured this correctly) when patients search for your specialty or a particular service.

Patients go to Google first, long before they even consider looking at the other review sites.

How do you drive patients to leave a Google review?

  • Hand out business cards asking for a review with a QR code that takes them directly to leave a review on Google.
  • Follow up via text or email with a link to your Google listing (helpful if your patient system has this built in.)
  • Repost reviews on your social feed and ask patients to leave a new one.

3). Ask When They Are the Happiest

Timing is everything. Don’t put off asking for a review until days or weeks after treatment. If a patient is expressing satisfaction to you in person, hand them a card like the one mentioned above and ask them to leave a review.

Also, remind them that positive reviews helps other patients who are troubled with the same issues find the right treatment like they just received. This helps provide context for the patient, rather than just, “hey, do me a favor…”


As a doctor, you should constantly be monitoring your reviews for both positive and negative reviews. And while you certainly need to manage negative reviews, you can fend off many review problems by proactively generating positive reviews.

Make the request to your patients when they are most likely to leave a positive review. With these three tips above, you can improve your online reviews as a doctor, attract more patients, and boost your SEO.

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