HealthGrades for the Dental Specialist

If you don’t know what HealthGrades has to say about your practice, you had better go to a computer right now and find out. In our experience (and we google practices all day), if you don’t have a Web site and a prospective patient googles your name, the first thing that a prospective patient will find is your HealthGrades page.

HealthGrades is probably the leading online health care rating organization. More individuals use HealthGrades than any other similar source. It currently receives 8 million inquiries each month.

Its goal is to create a profile on every dentist in the United States—and that includes dental specialists. It obtains data from governmental sources as well as other data providers and includes contact information and insurance plans accepted.

In addition—and here is what you need to pay special attention to—individuals can rate you and your practice. If you do not keep current with what your patients are saying about you, you run the risk of having a big black mark for your practice on the Internet.

According to the people at HealthGrades, they will correct in less than a week any factual errors in your contact information or insurances accepted. Bad patient reviews and comments are much more of a problem. They recommend that you encourage other patients who view you more positively to post their own ratings, thus balancing out or even outweighing the effect of one or two unhappy patients.

HealthGrades conducted a study of visitors looking for physicians and found that 84% wanted to make an appointment. They believe that the number would be similar for dentists.

Key point: You need to continuously monitor your online reputation—what is being said about you and your practice on the Internet. The HealthGrades Web site  is a good starting point.