Characterizing Negative Online Reviews in Hand Surgery

Physician review websites are easily accessible resources for patients seeking care. The purpose of our study is to characterize the negative reviews of hand surgeons found on popular review sites using a random sample of members from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) directory.

We randomly selected 500 hand surgeons from the AAOS Find an Orthopaedist database and searched for reviews on three websites: Healthgrades.com, Vitals.com, and RateMDs.com. All one-star written reviews were categorized based on the primary complaint in the review. These complaints were analyzed to determine the factors most frequently associated with negative reviews.

A total of 1,848 written one-star reviews were included in the analysis. Of all included reviews, 18.1% directly referenced having surgery with the reviewed surgeon while 81.9% did not. Nonclinical complaints comprised the majority of reviews (73.6%). Of the nonclinical complaints, bedside manner was the most frequently cited complaint (53.8%), while wait time (11.0%), time spent with the provider (10.4%), and staff complaints (8.5%) were the next most common. Among the clinical complaints, unfavorable surgical outcomes (40.4%) were most common, while disagreement with or unclear treatment plans (23.6%), misdiagnosis (12.3%), and uncontrolled pain (11.9%) were next.

While there are several potential sources of patient dissatisfaction, we have demonstrated that nonclinical aspects of care, such as surgeon bedside manner and office wait times, are disproportionately cited as reasons for negative ratings on physician review websites. It is essential for hand surgeons to understand the motivations behind the reviews that they receive.