Are All Reviews Created Equal?

Living in a digital world, we have endless amounts of information available at our fingertips. So when we’re shopping around before making a purchase, it makes sense that we look at other people’s reviews. Whether it’s for a restaurant, dry cleaner, mechanic, hairdresser, or yes, even a plastic surgeon, reviews are a good place to start narrowing down our options.

Our Ann Arbor plastic surgery team is proud of our patient reviews. Still, as you look at a variety of practices’ reviews, we want you to know what to look for. In this blog post, we’ll offer some tips for assessing patient reviews so you can get to the truth.

What about that one negative review?

I’m sure you’ve been there before. You’re looking for a new date night restaurant to try out and review after review claims it’s the best–-great service, superb quality, excellent location=–and then all of a sudden you stumble across a reviewer that cannot find anything positive to say. This person complains about everything, making you wonder if they went to the same restaurant that everyone else did. You almost write it off, but then you start second-guessing yourself. What if this person is telling the truth and the other reviews are just inflated. How do I know for sure?

Tips for Sorting Through Patient Reviews.

That same thing happens when it comes to the reviews of our surgeons and providers at Center for Plastic Surgery Ann Arbor. We’re not trying to hide it. The reality is 99% of our patients are beyond ecstatic with their results, but every once in a while we have a patient who–-no matter what we do to resolve the situation–-simply cannot be pleased.

As you’re reading through reviews on sites like Real Patient Ratings, RealSelf, Google, HealthGrades, Rate MDS, Yelp, and others, there are several important factors to consider:

1. On many sites, you don’t even have to be a patient to actually leave a review. We highly recommend referencing RealPatientRatings above all other review sites. As the name states, in order for someone to leave a review, they have to actually be a real patient. Read more about that in our related blog post. Patients cannot leave multiple reviews on this site (unless they’ve visited us for multiple treatments).
2. Disgruntled patients often leave reviews on any site they can over and over again for years. Yep, it’s true-–we’ve seen negative reviews from patients who had surgery 8 years ago still leaving reviews today! When you see a negative review, try to determine how recently the surgery actually took place and if this is a repeat of a review made previously. You can often tell by looking at names or the content of the review to see that it’s repetitive.
3. Due to HIPAA laws, there are limitations to how we can respond to reviews. Generally-–no matter what the review-–we can simply thank the person for their review and ask them to contact our office to resolve any issues. At that point, it’s up to the individual to contact us. We’re unable to explain anything or offer solutions on review sites.
4. Our board-certified surgeons have been practicing plastic surgery for 28 and 23 years each. Their continued success in the field speaks to the satisfaction of patients. Much of their business comes from word-of-mouth as patients who have had their expectations exceeded tell their friends and family to go to Dr. Beil and Dr. Sherick for treatment. We simply wouldn’t be in business today if we were providing subpar services. 
5. If you have questions about a procedure and would like to speak to a past patient, you’re always welcome to call our office. We can put you in touch with previous patients who are willing to share their experiences.
6. We take feedback from our patients seriously. While we are proud of the practice we have built, we know that there’s always room for improvement in order to keep offering the absolute best care. So if you ever have a concern, you can certainly leave it in a review. But more importantly, please contact us directly so we can figure out how to make the experience better in the future.

Thank you to all of our past patients for their support of our practice and their reviews on the multitude of review sites. If you’ve had a treatment with Dr. Sherick or Dr. Beil and haven’t yet left a review, we encourage you to do so on one of the many sites mentioned above!  

And if you are considering plastic surgery in Ann Arbor, take a look at our reviews and our patients’ before and after photos to get an idea of the type of results we create. We’re happy to talk with you about your goals and our process. You can give us a call at (734) 712-2323 or use our online form to request a consultation.