We Have Established Our Policy for Responding to Google Reviews

When we use a restaurant or hotel, we naturally share our impressions and post about the experience online.
Such candid voices are a valuable source of information for other users and a great encouragement for the business.

However,online reviews of medical institutions involve circumstances particular to them that differ from other industries.

We have now published on our website our policy for responding to online reviews, including Google reviews, together with an official policy page on replies.

Why must we refrain from replies that go into individual circumstances,
and why can we sometimes give only standard guidance?

In this article, I explain the circumstances particular to medical institutions behind this policy.

The reality that even a simple word such as “thank you” must be handled carefully

As explained in detail on the policy page, when a medical institution replies to online reviews, it must always observe laws and guidelines such as the following.

• Medical Advertisement Guidelines: prohibit medical institutions from using patients’ subjective testimonials for promotional purposes.¹
• Physician’s duty of confidentiality (Penal Code): information about patients learned in the course of duty must not be disclosed, even if the patient has made it public.²
• Act on the Protection of Personal Information: medical information is treated as “special care-required personal information” that must be especially strictly protected, and handling it requires the utmost care.³

Because of these “legal walls,” even when a patient writes, for example, “The treatment for ○○ was very good,” merely replying “We are glad you were satisfied” could be taken as our clinic publicly acknowledging the fact that “that person received a specific treatment at our clinic.”

Such an act, even if well-intentioned, ultimately carries the risk of violating various laws and regulations.
This is not a problem for our clinic alone, but a challenge shared by many medical institutions across the country as they sincerely face their patients.

Why we drew up and published a policy

Just because there are legal constraints, it is by no means our intention to ignore your opinions. Rather, how to deal with opinions online (online reputation management) is an extremely important issue for medical institutions going forward.⁴

So wedrew up clear rules, that is, a “policy,” as the best way to remain transparent and fair, comply with the law, and face you sincerely,and published it so that anyone can view it.

Our policy mainly sets out the following points.

• We read all reviews and take them seriously.
• In principle, replies do not touch on individual content and instead direct readers to the policy page.
• Constructive opinions are shared within the clinic and used to improve our daily care.
• We respond appropriately to posts that are legally problematic.

Please check the full text of the policy on the official page.

Please tell us your candid opinions

We would love to hear your voices about your experience at our clinic.
They will be a valuable resource for future improvement and for further improving our medical services.

If you would like to give feedback directly to our clinic for future improvement, please use the “satisfaction survey” below.
It would also be a great encouragement if you would post a Google review.

Link to Google reviews
https://g.page/r/CcfgyMH02_UaEAE/review

Also,Google recommends that businesses ask visitors for reviews.⁵
We would be greatly encouraged if you would share your candid opinions.

By drawing up this policy, our clinic’s online response policy has become clearer.
From now on, we will concentrate even more than before on caring for the patients in front of us and do our utmost.

References

1. Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. On advertising regulations for hospitals and others under the Medical Care Act. https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/kenkou_iryou/iryou/kokokukisei/index.html
2. e-Gov Laws Search. Penal Code (Act No. 45 of 1907), Article 134. https://elaws.e-gov.go.jp/document?lawid=140AC0000000045
3. Personal Information Protection Commission. Guidelines on the Act on the Protection of Personal Information (General Rules). https://www.ppc.go.jp/personalinfo/legal/guidelines_tsusoku/
4. Lagu T, Metayer K, Moran M, et al. Website Characteristics and Physician Reviews on Commercial Physician-Rating Websites. JAMA. 2017;317(7):766-768. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.18553 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28241346/
5. Google Business Profile Help. Guidelines for business owners to get more reviewshttps://support.google.com/business/answer/3474122