Should Doctors Be Friends With Their Patients on Facebook?

The short answer to this question is a big fat no. But let’s dig a little deeper.

Firstly, being personal friends with a patient on Facebook will very likely not fit the requirements of appropriate patient-doctor boundaries. Is it professional to let your patient see a post about your family outing? Or your position on a political issue? Or a photo of you from your freshman year in college? Feel free to have a personal FB account, but limit its privacy settings to family and friends only.

Luckily Facebook is for businesses too. There are many medical organizations on Facebook. The American Medical Association as well as the CDC both have Facebook pages. Even the President has one. It makes sense for doctors to do the same. MORE

How To Get Patients to Review You Online

We all agree online reviews are powerful tools. Many practices get patients from their reviews. So let’s teach you how to harness their power!

First decide which review sites you want reviews on. Perhaps the 2 most popular:
• Yelp
• Google +
There may be others based on your specialty and location eg. Yelp is not popular in every city.

As your satisfied patients leave your office, slip them this card along with a reminder for their next appointment.

You’ll be surprised how effective some of these review sites are. A recent article in Forbes discusses growing power of patient reviews.

Reviews are influential. And if you’re a great doctor, your patients will be happy to let others know it. Harness the power of reviews to improve your practice.