Your Reputation Precedes You

Four tips for Online Reputation Management

BY PAULA WYATT

It is true in healthcare, in life, and in business that a milligram of prevention is worth a kilogram of cure.

In the healthcare industry, more so than in most others, your reputation does in fact precede you — it defines you. As a physician your reputation is built not only on the positive outcomes you provide for your patients but also on the strength of the bonds you build with patients through positive experiences, and then through their enthusiasm to share their experience, whether it be perceived as positive or negative. Your reputation is further illustrated through the dynamics of your staff, your alliances with referring physicians, and your reputation among other health-care industry professionals.

The term “word of mouth” was coined before we had keyboards. Now, it is easier than ever, with the “stroke of a key,” to praise or hurt a physician’s reputation. Everyone gets to vote. In comparing a one-star “my pasta was cold” review that a restaurant might receive to a one-star “this doctor and his entire office are incompetent” review a medical practice might receive, it is clear that both reviews take about the same amount of time to create but have vastly different impacts.

This is great news — if you choose to leverage this opportunity to grow your practice. Elevating your online footprint (reputation) is a central part of a comprehensive medical marketing and communication strategy (MCS). Your MCS defines and illustrates your values and commitments to your patients, your practice, and your team, and it establishes a plan (tactics, timelines, and processes outlining how you are elevating your unique specialties and distinctive approaches to enforce your reputation among your patients, your potential patients, and your health-care peers and affiliates).

Within the combination of tactics are some that you can control (such as website, social media, email marketing, and outreach efforts) and some that you cannot (such as word of mouth and online reviews). A strong MCS helps you and your staff excel in the things you can control and manage well the things you cannot.

If you do not currently have an MCS fueling the growth and ensuring the harmony of your practice, you are not alone. In my experience working with physicians to grow their practices, I would say less than 20 percent have an MCS, and of those who do not, most are not even considering it, which makes having an MCS a clear competitive advantage.

Developing a strong MCS is quite an undertaking. It involves integrating long-term financial goals with situational analysis, understanding your patient profiles, evaluating referral paths, and developing your “products” (procedures, treatments, and specialties) as well as tying it all together with an ROI reporting mechanism. If you are like almost every physician I know, you are busy—so I am offering you an effective, inexpensive FIRST STEP.

What is Your Current Reputation Management Strategy?

Investing time in conducting an Annual Reputation Refresh will polish all the “word-of-mouth” outlets floating around on the internet and ensure you are leading the online conversation “about YOU.” To get started, define your current growth strategy for your practice. Which are you? • My strategy is that patients will find me because I am a qualified physician. I am busy with patients. I do not have time for anything else. • I usually have some people in my office who, when they are not doing their main job, can post on our Facebook page. We try to respond to negative reviews if we see them. • I have a dedicated marketing and communication professional (either an employee or a marketing contractor) who manages the reputation and branding strategy that fuels the growth of my practice.

How to Conduct an Annual Reputation Refresh

• Who: Confirm who will be the author of the plan; it can be you, an employee, or a contractor. • When: If you are doing it yourself, plan a weekend in front of your computer to complete 90 percent of it. • How: Start with a blank document in your favorite font, size 10, and double spaced — your logo is the cover page. Then, scan this QR code for an easy-to-follow process.

Step One | Storytelling

• Clear your Google browsing data, and then search (your name and your practice) 10 pages deep on Google. Remember to search Google images, videos, and news. • Copy links of all the places you appear. • Create or refresh the story of your practice (300 or fewer words). • Create or refresh short and engaging bios for yourself (and all physicians in your practice). • Refresh your headshots, group shots, and casual images, for website and social media. • Integrate affiliations, such as hospitals, universities, and medical organizations. • Integrate charitable causes that pertain to your areas of expertise.

Step Two | Physician Review Sites

• Of the many physician review sites, I suggest owning at least the top five (Vitals, Healthgrades,

ZOCDOC, RateMDs, and doctor.com). Depending on the site, you can establish a free account.

You may also consider the benefits of paid membership on a few. • View each referral source, and update image, bio, links, hours, and information. • Create a monitoring schedule and a reporting mechanism. • Address negative reviews with the patient directly.

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OCR-HIPAA Right of Access Initiative

d/b/a, Elite Primary Care (Elite), providing primary care services in Georgia and a complaint by a patient claiming that Elite failed to respond to request for access to the patient’s medical records. Elite has greed to pay a $36,000 fine and undertake a corrective action plan including two years of monitoring.

Finally, on January 12, 2021, the OCR sent out a press release on the most recent settlement to date regarding the fourteenth case. The case involved Banner Health, a nonprofit health system based in Phoenix, AZ that operates 30 hospitals and numerous other health care facilities, and two (2) separate complaints to the OCR from individuals alleging Banner Health affiliated entities failed to provide timely access to their medical records. Ultimately, Banner Health settled and will pay $200,000 to resolve potential violations and undertake a corrective action plan that includes two years of monitoring. In the press release, OCR Director Roger Severino ominously stated, “This first resolution of the year signals that our Right of Access Initiative is still going strong and that providers of all sizes need to respect the right of patients to have timely access to their medical records.”

Health care providers routinely receive requests for medical records and other records. Reviewing and responding to those requests can be time consuming and administratively burdensome. However, putting in place policies and procedures, developing template forms for intake and response, and assigning responsibility and training regarding answering medical records requests are successful tools in minimizing the risk of an OCR enforcement action.

In short, Covered Entities should be ready for the Right of Access Initiative by reviewing their policies and practices to ensure that they timely respond to patient requests for access to medical records in compliance with HIPAA rules. Health care providers should also be aware of State (in this case Florida) law in this area, which may impose additional or more strict obligations that are not preempted by HIPAA. In the event that the State law grants greater rights to patients, for example, the State law requires a response to request for records in a shorter timeframe than HIPAA, then the State law must be followed.

The Healthcare Team at Lowe & Evander, P.A. understands the hard work and sacrifices it takes to become a health professional or provider and aggressively defends health professionals regarding protecting their license, practice, career, assets and reputation. Using our experience and expertise, we navigate the obstacles our clients face, serving not only as their attorneys, but also as their legal strategists, trusted advisors and protectors of their rights and interest against government investigations and lawsuits when necessary, and we help chart a course through the maze of state and federal health care laws, rules and regulations.

Look for our next installment in this series shortly!

Michael R. Lowe, Esquire is a Florida board-certified health law attorney at Lowe & Evander, P.A. Brian C. Evander , Esquire and Mr. Lowe regularly represent providers, physicians and other licensed health care professionals, and facilities in a wide variety of health care law matters. For more information regarding those health care law and such matters please visit our website www.lowehealthlaw.com or call our office at (407) 332-6353. The information provided in this article does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; instead, all information and content in this article are intended to convey general informational only and may not constitute the most up-to-date legal or other information. Readers of this article should contact their attorney to obtain advice with respect to any particular legal matter. No reader of this article should act or refrain from acting on the basis of information in this article without first seeking legal advice from counsel in the relevant jurisdiction. Only your individual attorney can provide assurances that the information contained herein – and your interpretation of it – is applicable or appropriate to your particular situation.

Pandemic Fatigue

• Turn off the news: News stories can be alarming and can create anxiety and fear in your conscious and unconscious mind. These stories draw you in, and you can get stuck watching them for hours without realizing the emotional effect.

• Stay away from Social Media: There is nothing worse than opening Facebook and realizing you have been scrolling for an hour without awareness of the time - it is called the death scroll. Set limits on your phone or unplug from social media all together. • Stress Management: Don’t wait until the end of the day, or the end of the week to discharge stress. Incorporate stress management techniques throughout the day whenever you feel tension. Gentle breaths, yoga poses, or laughing, are just a few. • Routines: When everything feels out of control, one of the quickest ways to feel back in control is to create a routine. Consider a pandemic routine that includes multiple aspects of self-care.

• Get Help: Mental health counseling is a great option to help ourselves, our families and patients get through this difficult time.

Pandemic fatigue is REAL. Identifying your thoughts and reactions is an important first step. Do you feel like you ‘are just not yourself?’ Do you feel that your old tools and techniques are not working? Do you feel that you are reacting to things you wouldn’t have previously reacted to? If so, it is important to STOP, listen to yourself, and implement consistent daily self-care tools needed to facilitate your personal wellness, both for yourself, and for those you care for.

April Boykin is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and cofounder of Counseling Resource Services (CRS). Established in 2013, CRS is a community-based in-home integrated behavioral health agency serving the aged and disabled population in Central Florida. As a mental health counselor, she has provided individual, family and caregiver counseling to children, teens and adults. She can be reached at april@counselingresourceservices.com

Your Reputation Precedes You

• Address erroneous reviews left by someone other than a patient or for another physician (by mistake) with the physician review site (the appeal process takes a while but stay with it).

Step Three | Google Listing

• Take ownership of your Google Business

Page (GBP) and map listing for all your locations and for each physician. • Make a list of your top 50 key search terms. • Monitor Google Reviews. • Create a Google QR Review Campaign offering patients a link at checkout.

Step Four | Aligning Social Media

• Ensure your social “about” sections are enforcing the same story you are sharing on your website. • Update your profiles, images, hours, and links. • Eliminate those you do not use. It is best to focus on doing one or two well, rather than trying to keep up with all of them. • Check the status of your business and personal accounts. • Build a content calendar that plans your key topics for the year.

So, there you go! These are the four steps to conducting your Annual Reputation Refresh. Remember to assign someone to monitor it throughout the year on a schedule that makes sense for you. If you are managing it yourself, maybe you monitor it annually. If you have a staff member managing it, try for monthly or quarterly. And, if you hire a contractor, they should be looking at it daily.

Paula Wyatt is excited about helping you grow your medical practice through the development of impactful Marketing and Communication Strategies. Paula is a native Floridian, passionate about Orlando. Living up to her title as Chief Excitement Officer at Anything is Posh Able, she runs a boutique Image Building and Event Planning firm. She is the founder of a nonprofit organization called Posh Abilities, providing free event planning and image-building services to Central Florida nonprofit organizations. Email her at paula@anythingisposhable.com