- It’s always been important; most professionals have a built-in barometer that measures high on the quality scale. Most MDs do want to be very good at what they do. It’s about morality, honor and integrity. Those never go out of style.
- Everybody is watching you:
- The insurance companies
- The medical board
- The governments, state and federal
- The review sites
- The hospitals and surgery centers
- If you are in private practice, you want to attract a large number of high quality patients
- You need practice prosperity to support your staff and yourself.
- A practice without enough patients is doomed. Practices, like businesses can fail.
- Every practice is involved in a popularity contest. Who wants to lose?
- If you are not in private practice, you are still required to attract patients and see a large number of them to satisfy your employer.
- MD-employees, like production line employees, are monitored for number of patients seen.
- Medical groups which employ MDs are now numbers-driven for financial reasons and therefore you need to “ keep up” lest your position is at risk. With record number of residency graduates, there’s always a replacement knocking on the door.
- Medical groups are under pressure from bureaucrats and insurance carriers to provide “quality care”. That’s the marketing buzzword but they are now very sensitive to patient complaints, etc. You don’t’ want black marks against you.
- Regardless of the mode of practice, public “reviews” are ultra-powerful. A single bad post has killed some venerable careers. Bad news is more attractive and powerful than good news; hence, bad reviews are to be avoided – if you can. Yelp, Healthgrades, Vitals, Google, RealSelf, et al, and all such review sites hold enormous power.
- In private practice or employee practice or employee practice, don’t disregard the power of reviews and remember, once a negative/devastating review is posted, they are not easily erased.
- Patients now feel so empowered by these public review sites, they may engage in subtle form of blackmail. Beware. “Doctor, I need to have those Vicodin pills for pain. If you don’t give them to me, I will post a bad review”.
- Bottom line. The better you are as an MD, and the more popular you are with patients, who are now very well-informed ( thanks to the Internet) and empowered, the more secure/successful you can be. What comes with that is a better lifestyle and support for you family. Don’t assume that just because you engaged in maximum deferred gratification through long schooling and training, that the world will worship at your feet. Those days are over. MDs are just another group of servants, albeit well-educated, but nonetheless, workers for hire.
Stay focused on your work, stay humble, and never stop trying to be better at what you do. “To stay good, you have to constantly strive to become better”.
-Robert Kotler MD, FACS