"Studies show that those physicians with negative online reviews were more often scored poorly due to non-physician specific causes. In my career, I’ve read comments from patients that said they were not satisfied with their provider because they didn’t like the color of the walls in the exam room. Another mentioned that tea wasn’t offered in the waiting room, just coffee.

Surveys are not necessarily bad, but they have changed the way we interact with patients. Doctors are now feeling pressured to provide care patients don’t need because of fears of bad patient satisfaction scores or negative reviews online. This causes more stress on health care professionals. In a national study, 78 percent of clinicians said patient satisfaction scores moderately or severely affected their job satisfaction negatively, and 28 percent said the scores made them consider quitting."

Peter Valenzuela is a family physician and author of Doc-Related: A Physician's Guide to Fixing Our Ailing Health Care System.

He shares his story and discusses his KevinMD article, "Patient surveys: the quest for positive reviews."

Reflect and earn 1.0 AMA PRA Category 1 CME for this episode.