Practo Feedback Guidelines for Healthcare Service Providers

Practo Feedback Guidelines for Healthcare Service Providers

Practo Feedback is a great way for users to express how their appointment with a healthcare service provider went.  It helps other people looking for similar services make an informed decision.  Moreover, it helps healthcare service providers understand how the consultation worked for their users.  If a healthcare service provider owns a profile on Practo Search, uses Practo Ray and/or Practo Tab, Practo Feedback gathers feedback responses from users regarding their experience with him/her.  These responses are displayed on a service provider’s profile page on Practo.com and Practo smartphone apps. We encourage all healthcare providers and establishments to make the most of this tool to reach out and interact with their patients and build word of mouth for their practice. 

Feedback is collected ONLY from users:

who book appointments through Practo.com

who book appointments with establishments subscribed to Practo Ray

who book appointments with establishments using Practo Tab

who book appointments using the Call feature on Practo Search

who have an account on Practo

Practo reaches out to these users via SMS/email within 4 days after their appointment and asks them for feedback about their experience.  They are free to write feedback anytime after their appointment.  Moreover, our full-proof system restricts a person from giving more than one feedback for a single appointment.  So, you can be rest assured that only authentic feedback responses reflect on your profile. 

How to get the best out of Practo Feedback

Own your Profile

Take ownership of your profile.  This helps you keep it updated and build user trust. 

Be proactive while communicating with users.  Even if you receive negative feedback, respond to it fairly.  If you think that the user is wrong or expecting too much, you can explain the rationale behind your actions.  It will help you establish trust with other users too. 

Do Not Advertise

Refrain from posting promotional material like promotional URLs, feedback, email address, or phone numbers for self or any other healthcare service provider.  We reserve the right to take down such data. 

Feedback Moderation

Helpful and authentic Feedback

A helpful and authentic Feedback is one that complies with Practo Feedback Standards, and more importantly, is submitted by an authentic user. 

To ensure that feedback is useful to patients and the medical community, we mandate a minimum character limit of 100 characters on every feedback response.  We also completely prohibit the following feedback type:

How is the moderation done? 

We have a team of in-house experts that examine questionable feedback.  Each Feedback is evaluated as a whole and put through the filter of Practo Feedback Standards.  A moderator can take the following actions on any questionable feedback:

Publish

Withhold for investigation

Decline to publish

In addition, we use automated tools on the site that help flag questionable content for review

The majority of Feedback is posted within 48 working hours of submission.  If a Feedback is flagged for a closer look by our moderators, it may take longer,

However, if the feedback uses inappropriate language or seems spammy we don’t publish it. 

Positive and negative Feedback

As long as feedback meets our guidelines, we’re happy to post it whether it’s positive or negative. 

Our Feedback Compliance Policy

Its of utmost importance to both the medical community and patients, that feedback on practo is genuine and paints an unbiased picture of the healthcare provider or establishment.  For the reason, we take feedback compliance extremely seriously.  Misusing or manipulating feedback system for personal benefit is the last thing Practo would entertain.  Practo follows stringent standards and processes to detect non-compliance and deal with it in the right manner. 

If any feedback collected is found by our algorithms to have undergone any sort of gaming or bias, Practo reserves the right to not display that feedback on Practo.com. 

Non-compliant feedback types –

A healthcare service provider or healthcare establishment attempting to boost his/her/its own property’s reputation by:

Writing feedback for his/her own practice

Asking friends or relatives or practice staff to write feedback

Submitting feedback on behalf of a user

Copying comment cards and submitting them as feedback

Pressurizing Practo or a user to remove feedback

Offering incentives such as discounts, upgrades or any special treatment in exchange for feedback

Hiring an optimization company, a third party marketing organization, or anyone to submit false feedback

Any other suspicious activity on unnatural patterns in feedback which indicates that feedback might not be genuine

A healthcare service provider attempting to promote/ malign his/her competitors by submitting feedback

Detecting compliance

To prevent the compliance policy from getting exploited, we don’t disclose its details, but we can assure you that we have dedicated a significant amount of time and resources to ensure that the content on Practo reflects quality feedback by real users.  We have quality assurance specialists who have brought a wide range of professional experience to enhance our prevention methods.  Our team spends thousands of hours every year to ensure the integrity of feedback on Practo. 

Depending on the nature & severity of the non-compliance, one of the following steps may be taken:

Removal of non-compliant feedback along with due notice and/or warning to the healthcare provider or establishment

Repeated instances can lead to the provider or establishments losing the benefit that good feedback brings to the visibility and relevance on Practo.com

Re-verification of all the feedback submitted by the patients for that provider or establishment, via SMS or any other suitable channel

Removal/Un-publishing of all feedback on Practo.com for that provider or establishment

The legal view

In addition to being a violation of our terms of service and an unethical practice, this is also a violation of the law in many jurisdictions.  In July 2009, the US Attorney General settled a case which resulted in a $300,000 penalty for a company posting fake consumer reviews.  It is also illegal to post fake reviews in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany, Ireland, Sweden and the Netherlands (among other countries) pursuant to the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, adopted by these countries. 

Our message, loud and clear

Any attempt to mislead, influence or impersonate a user will be subject to penalty. 

For feedback collected directly by healthcare providers, it is subject to additional guidelines given below:

For feedback collected in-premise (at the clinic/ hospital):
– We need the exact appointment details for the patient submitting this feedback.  Using the appointment details, we will reach out to your patients and collect their feedback (please note that feedback collected in-premise by the healthcare provider is not published on practo)

For feedback collected off-premise (by communication channels such as SMS and email):
– We will publish this feedback and verify the same as per our standard process

Reply to the feedback

Replying to a feedback (even if it’s negative) can help you share your point of view with the patient.  A feedback when handled deftly and politely can lead to more conversions. 

Keep in mind the following points while responding to the patients’ feedback:

Read the review and try to understand the patient’s point of view

Make sure that your response is truthful and respectful.  Agitated tone may impact your establishment’s credibility.  Don’t be abusive. 

Do not reveal any patient’s personal information.  According to MCI guidelines, healthcare professional cannot reveal patient’s health condition on any public forum.  Any responses bearing personal/medical information of the patient, which is not mentioned in the patient’s review, will not be published. 

Practo Feedback FAQs for Healthcare Service Providers

How does feedback help me? 

Studies have shown that feedback responses, both positive and negative, are crucial in building customer trust.  They also give you, as a healthcare service provider, a direct look into the needs and expectations of patients/customers. 

What information do you collect via feedback? 

Practo Feedback Collection System currently asks users about their appointment experience.  The information that we collect would primarily be categorized as below:

Recommendation – whether the user would recommend the healthcare service provider to his/her friends and family

Wait-Time – how long the Practo user had to wait for his/her appointment

Feedback about Healthcare Service Provider – User’s testimonial about appointment experience with the healthcare service provider

Health Issue – Reason to visit the healthcare service provider

Where do I see this feedback? 

Feedback and recommendations collected via Practo Feedback are updated on Practo.com and on Practo’s smartphone apps.  However, the recommendation score is visible only if the doctor receives 10 or more recommendations.  In case there are less than 10 recommendations, we don’t display anything at all.  As far as the appointment experience score is concerned, we display that only if we have received 5 or more patient feedback on the clinic. 

How do I enable/disable Practo Feedback? 

As a Practo customer, you can open the feedback tab inside Practo Ray, and enable Practo Feedback.  We’ll start collecting feedback once you’ve enabled it. 

You can also disable it from the same place.  We’ll stop collecting feedback once you’ve disabled it, but disabling Feedback does not remove previously collected feedback responses on your profile. 

What should I do to make sure I benefit from Practo Feedback? 

Three things you should do to let Practo Feedback help you would be:

Enable Practo Feedback

Try to get complete contact information including email address and mobile numbers from Practo users who come to you, so that Practo can reach out to them effectively

Tell them about the feedback communication they will receive from Practo

How much does Practo Feedback cost? 

Feedback collected from users who book appointment via Practo is currently a free service.  The service for collecting feedback from users who visit Practo Ray-enabled healthcare establishment is free for a limited time. 

Why are you providing Practo Feedback for free? 

A Practo user’s decision to choose a healthcare service provider might be largely governed by feedback responses of his/her previous patients/customers.  We want healthcare service providers to experience the benefits of Practo Feedback.  With feedback responses on Practo, you’ll get to know your patients/customers better.  This can help you understand and meet their expectations with ease. 

Can I contact patients/customers who give feedback? 

You can reply to the patients/customers who have submitted feedback for you.  Please be thankful or take the criticism positively wherever necessary.  Remember they have nothing personal against you and a kind word from you can change his mind. 

Can I moderate feedback about me before it gets posted?  If not, who will do it? 

For feedback to remain authentic, only Practo’s Feedback Moderation Team can filter out personal, offensive or abusive feedback.  You can report feedback to us in case you wish for us to review it.  Contact us on support@practo.com. 

Will Practo Feedback affect my ranking on Practo.com? 

Yes, Feedback certainly has a part to play in the Practo Relevance Algorithm.  We see enabling feedback as a positive step towards transparency and trust and your commitment will be acknowledged. 

How fair is Practo’s feedback system? 

The Practo Feedback System limits the number of SMS and emails sent to a particular user to one-per-month, even if he/she books more than one appointments during this period.  This ensures sufficient cool-off period between subsequent feedback responses from the same user and a robust and fair feedback model. 

How does Practo define non-compliant feedback? 

The following leads to Practo categorising feedback as non-compliant:

A healthcare service provider or healthcare establishment attempting to boost his/her/its own property’s reputation by:

Writing feedback for his/her own practice

Asking friends or relatives to write feedback

Submitting feedback on behalf of a user

Copying comment cards and submitting them as feedback

Pressurizing Practo or a user to remove feedback

Offering incentives such as discounts, upgrades or any special treatment in exchange for feedback

Hiring an optimization company, a third party marketing organization, or anyone to submit false feedback

A healthcare service provider attempting to promote/ malign his/her competitors by submitting feedback (e.g. a doctor giving feedback for another doctor)

I have more questions.  Who do I talk to? 

You can always reach out to Practo Support (support@practo.com / +918880588999) and we will try our best to resolve your queries asap.