If you go
to a plastic surgeon’s website and it says online ratings give her an aggregate
average of 4.9 points out of 5, you might assume she does a great job and her
patients love her.
In fact,
reality may be something else entirely: She may actually have a 3.5 overall
rating, perhaps, or even lower. What happened? Most likely, the surgeon hired a
tech company who fudged the truth — a decision that could have major
consequences.
“We’re
seeing companies bragging that they’re providing a competitive advantage by
using technology to manipulate results,” explains Ryan Miller, president of
Etna Interactive, a tech consulting firm based in San Luis Obispo, Calif. “If
the doctor is unethical and uses this technology to an unethical end, they’ll
eventually be called out for it.”
Benefits of Aggregate Ratings
Aggregate
ratings themselves aren’t the villain. They’re becoming common on physician
websites, says Miller, who spoke earlier this year at The Aesthetic Meeting,
the annual meeting of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
“They’re a way that a practice can take an active role in leveling the review
playing field and share a more representative picture of their reviews,” Miller
says.
For
example, a practice may choose to display an aggregate of online ratings from a
variety of sources — Yelp, Google, RealSelf, Healthgrades and more — instead of
just displaying ratings from one source. There’s an added bonus: Google detects
aggregate ratings and displays them when users find practices during online
searches.
But Beware Legal and Ethical Issues
The
problem: It’s easy for a tech firm to tweak the aggregate rating so negative
numbers don’t count. A keystroke here, a keystroke there and voila — A doctor
with a 3.2 average overall rating from several sources suddenly has a 4.8 with
no one the wiser.
As an
example, Miller points to a Texas plastic surgeon whose aggregate rating is
quite impressive, partly because a 1-star rating got thrown out.
Not
surprisingly, this kind of manipulation could pose a legal problem. “In every
state, you may not engage in fraudulent, misleading or false advertising,”
Miller says. “If you are offering an ‘unbiased’ aggregation of all review
content but tossing out any criticism, then it’s our belief that you’re
misleading patients.” And, of course, misleading patients is an ethical no-no.
What
should you do? Miller says it’s fine to tout aggregate ratings on your website,
but you need to do so in a honest and ethical manner.
Being up
front is actually a time-saver, he says, because “it does take more effort to
willfully cut out stuff that’s critical.” And besides, he says, “for the most
part, practices are liked and respected by their patients. You don’t need to
lie.”
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