I woke up a few mornings ago with a HUGE lump on the back of my head. It hurt like hell and I had no idea what to do. (Before anyone gets worried, I am fine!) I don’t have any doctors in Austin, so I asked around my office and ended up at my company’s clinic. She referred me to an ENT and made me an appointment. And on my way to the appointment, I googled the doctor who was going to treat me. I didn’t just spend a few minutes googling him, I spent the entire 30 minutes before my appointment trying to find out about this guy. Did he have experience with head lumps? Are ENTs even qualified to work on heads? Has this doctor killed a lot of people? If he board certified? Now you may think I am nuts, but how are you supposed to know a good doctor from a bad doctor?
Before social media most people found out who the good doctors were through traditional word of mouth. If you were looking for a dentist you would just ask around and see if anyone liked their dentist. But now people are taking to the internet to check out their doctors before they make a choice.
I wish when I googled my new doctor I found:
1. His LinkedIn profile- Where did he graduate from, where was his residency, how long has he been practicing?
2. Rating and reviews on his website- What do his regular patients say about him? Are you a patient who has been seeing him for 3 years and your whole family goes to him too?
3. Ratings and reviews on a 3rd party site- Did you have a bad experience with him? Did he mess up the lump on your head?
It’s time for doctors to stop relying on traditional word of mouth, and start levering their online networks. I’ve decided from this day forward I won’t be doing to a doctor unless I can find out about them before online.
Just today a dentist in Austin started following me on Twitter. First tweet I saw said, “Has it been awhile since you have visited a Dentist? Dr. Becker is just up the road in Round Rock.” Um why yes I actually do need to make a dentist appointment, and now you have made it so I can quickly jump to your site and Google you. Doctors really need to make the move online. Your patients are depending on you!
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This is { definitely one|one } of the better {articles|posts } { about|on } this subject that { I’ve seen|is out there }.
(Not the {typical|usual } sales pitch for some { product|ebook }.)
My { 1st|first } time here, so you’ll be hearing from me again.
{ Salud|Cheers }, Marcus.
I totally agree with you that more, readily available information is a good thing. After many years with the same doctors, I recently switched to Kaiser Permanente, a managed care system. I had to sit down and pick a primary care physician. The Kaiser website had a page for each doctor with their photo, their education information, years in practice, etc. It also gave them room to write more personal information like why they chose to practice at Kaiser, a little about who they are, their families, hobbies, etc. It definitely made the experience a little more human. I think word of mouth, from people you know and trust, is always the best way to go. Personally, I place little value on Yelp-like sites. I find the reviews (of anything) to be allover the map. Person A says “The best pizza I’ve ever had!” Person B says “The worst pizza I’ve ever had!” and I just find that I don’t give much weight to the opinion of someone I don’t know. Maybe Person A had only ever had Domino’s pizza before this and that is there whole frame of reference.
I don’t know what the answer is….maybe it’s that in our own lives we make sure to sing the praises of those professionals and service providers that we love, so that other’s will know about them. It seems like we often end up bitching about the not-so-good ones, but don’t always take the time to spread the word about the good ones.
Don’t deprive yourself of an excellent physician merely because they don’t have a web presence! Doctors, the good ones with bustling practices, are busy and I’d rather they devote their time (and that of their staffs) to staying up on the latest information about medicine than on social media.
Hey Heidi-
Thanks for the great comment. I totally agree that people should really sing the praises of the doctors they like. It’s also really nice that your insurance provides you with some background on the doctors. I would love to look at something like that before picking a doc.