We’ll explain a little why physicians should be worried about online reputation management (ORM).

As the online world is wide and handy, bad reputation takes shape here. Online Reputation Management is the monitoring process that addresses or alleviates the SERPs (search engine result pages) or entries in the online media and social networking domains.

Just like anybody Physicians are as visible as anyone on the Internet and they can be at the receiving end too. Physicians, though they are never considered super-humans, are role models so the expectation and responsibilities is obvious. But looking at the speed information travels on the Internet (through blogs and social networking media), the reputation of a physician can be grounded in no time.

We, at ReputationManagementFor.com did an advanced search on Google on selected Physicians and took screen shots of the first page results. Some of the Physicians were shocked – the negatives that showed on the first page were purely false. In several cases the errors were momentous. Some doctors expressed their helplessness; they are worried when any misinformation appears on sites like Yelp, HealthGrades etc.

A senior doctor once reflected on how it took several months for him to persuade a patient to retract the scathing review posted about him on a review website. The problem starts when doctors or Hospitals do not have enough knowledge about such reviews and by the time they realize, the post might have received thousands hits. Now that’s what we say is a reputation management problem!

We know more patients are doing research about physicians online. Some doctor keep a tab on what is been said about them.  Another example is about a doctor who overlooked this factor because he was employed, but it was a collective reputation so he along-with the Hospital took the beating.

Ignoring online reputation is like endorsing somebody’s view that you are a burglar. It is your professional reputation that’s at stake. You’ve worked hard to get and you owe it to defend and manage your ORM.

From restaurants to hotels there are reviews for just about everything and doctors are no exception. There are millions of critics eager to post their last night experience about a chicken dish or grumble about a lethargic service and they will find a place to post them.  Similarly websites like ratemd.com or angislist.com is a place where users post comments about their physicians. A Doctor will have hundreds of happy patients, but it only takes one bad review to trash a Doctor’s online reputation.

These review websites are good tool for patients searching the best care, and brings in more business to doctors. But a bad review can mean empty waiting room. To avoid getting beaten online, doctors sometimes make their patient sign legal agreements or gag orders asking them not to post any comments online. These doctors say they have no option due to privacy policy they are forced to keep silent when patient bad mouth them.

Reputation Management For.com realizes it’s a matter of survival and how important a doctor’s reputation is. A survey undertaken in Texas where patients were asked ‘who do you trust the most when it comes to health hosting- Doctors, Politicians, Media, or health policy experts’ and well the answer was doctors.

It’s widely accepted that 70 percent of today’s users search for your name on Google before they decide to do business with you. Obviously when it comes to deal with medical professionals, prospective patients will tend to check a doctor’s online reputation and testimonial by just typing their name. A clean online reputation helps in obtaining new patients and maintaining trust with existing patients.

So the best way to balance the doctor’s right to fair evaluation and patient’s right to quality health care is to have a third-party review those comments. This will protect the rights of a doctor from an unfair online trial. Doctors may not agree on how to reform health system, but the bottom line is that patients trust their doctors and want to hear what they have to say.

Google’s real time search integration into searches is for the time being giving its 6 minutes of fame to anyone who is active on Twitter. Go out there blog about anything topical and before you know BAM you’re in the first five on Google news searches.

The good thing about this is that you can really get a lot of people reading what you want them to read. So if you’re a Tiger Woods you should be out there with expert reputation management guys telling the world that you messed up big time, that you’re seeing a top shrink to handle your “addiction” and that you plan to be back on top of the game in 2010.

The bad thing about this real-time search integration that Google has begun is that, if you have a disgruntled customer, employee, spouse, agent, patient or fan you could be in a blitz of bad press within minutes. Scary? Definitely!

The call for reputation management has just turned into a shout. You need to have daily PR out there as defenders with positive news and content. It’s a minefield out there, more so now.