About a year ago, I got a scathing one-star Google review. The disgruntled patient was agnostic in his assessment of me, but he thought my staff was absolutely abysmal. He went to great lengths to describe how my staff had offended him with all manner of insolence, indifference, and neglect. He described his experience as something to be avoided at all cost by anyone seeking eye care in Downtown Dallas. There is just one problem—the person who wrote the review has never called or been to my practice before.

Was this patient disgruntled with another Downtown Dallas optometrist and just placed the review on the wrong site? Or was this guy intentionally trying to hurt me for some unknown reason?

Damage Control

We spend a lifetime cultivating and curating a professional reputation, which is now and always has been the currency of practice building. When someone attacks that reputation—especially without cause—what are we to do?

Google does have a “Google Review Policy” that contains 10 different categories of violations. One category is “Spam and Fake Content.” This policy states that fake information is a violation that can merit the removal of the review by Google.

The policy applies to all content on Google—including reviews. If you think that an unfair review or one that contains fake content has been posted on Google, you can go to https://support.google.com/business/answer/4596773?hl=en to sign into “Google My Business.” Click “Manage Location,” click “Reviews,” find the review in question, and “Flag” it for removal. Google then adjudicates the claim for removal of the review. You must be able to log onto Google Business to do this. So, you must register if you want to have a chance of removing fake reviews from Google.

On Facebook, when someone posts something that you believe to be false, click the small “…” located in the upper right-hand corner of the post itself for a drop-down menu. Click “Report Post,” then choose your option from the “What’s Going On?” list.

For Twitter, things are relatively straightforward. When you think that there is a false tweet about you, go to https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-report-violation . Open the profile you’d like to report, select the “Overflow” icon or select the “gear” icon for an iPhone or Apple device, then select “Report,” and “They’re Being Abusive or Harmful.” Twitter will ask you for more information. You can also show the tweets back-and-forth with Twitter.

For Yelp, you can report the fake review from the www.biz.yelp.com site, or you can report it from the Yelp app. From the website, locate the review in question, click the “Flag” icon, and select “Report This Review.” Yelp will then review it and adjudicate. From the app, locate the review that you wish to report, click the “…” for more options, then click “Report Review.”

In the old days, it was a truism that when you made people happy, they told no one; when you made them ecstatic, they told three people; and when you disappointed them, they told seven people. Now, no matter what you do, they can easily tell millions about their experience in your practice.

One way to improve your situation is to have actual patients in your practice submit a Google review. That can help offset any bad reviews, and it also moves you up on the search pages. CLS