Characterizing Extremely Negative Reviews of Ophthalmologists on Yelp.Com

To perform a retrospective characterization of one-star reviews of ophthalmologists on Yelp.com and to increase understanding of patient complaints on Yelp.com.

A search was performed for reviews on Yelp.com using the keyword "ophthalmologist" for the top 8 most population-dense metropolitan areas in the United States. One-star reviews were collected and classified as procedural or nonprocedural. Complaints were also categorized as clinical, nonclinical, or both. Clinical complaints cited issues such as complications, reoperations, uncontrolled pain, misdiagnosis, unclear treatment plan, etc. Nonclinical complaints included comments such as physician bedside manner, other staff interpersonal manner, wait time, brevity of appointment time, etc.

5,532 total reviews were assessed, of which 477 (9%) one-star reviews were included in the study for analysis. These reviews amounted to 1,120 distinct complaints. 287 (26%) were clinical in nature and 833 (74%) were nonclinical. Technical incompetence or error (50: 4%), unsatisfactory results (46: 4%), and complications (43: 4%) represented the most common clinical complaints while office staff interpersonal manner (182: 16%), wait time (174: 16%), and physician interpersonal manner (141: 13%) were the most common nonclinical complaints. Refractive surgery was the most frequently mentioned subspecialty (89: 8%). Patients undergoing an ophthalmic procedure (surgery, injection, etc.) wrote 64 reviews that resulted in 193 (17%) complaints. Nonprocedural patients wrote 413 reviews that resulted in 927 (83%) complaints. Compared with procedural reviews, nonprocedural reviews were less likely to include a clinical complaint (rate ratio, 0.3: P < .001).

The majority of one-star reviews of ophthalmologists included in this study were nonclinical. Complaints referencing a procedural episode were more likely to include a clinical component in the review. In the era of intense medical consumerism and increased physician and health care institution competition for patient acquisition and retention, the characterization of excessively negative reviews allows identification of potential areas of concern for patients that use online review sites such as Yelp.com.