Many medical practices are losing patients through bad Facebook reviews without even realising it. Even if you don’t have a Facebook page for your practice, there may be an unofficial page where patients regularly check in through their smart phones and in many cases, leave negative reviews. With Facebook one of the first places that prospective patients look when choosing a new doctor, bad reviews may mean your practice is missing out on new patients.

Thousands of these unofficial Facebook pages exist and many have comments such as “I thought a recent waiting time of THREE HOURS for a five minute procedure was a tad too long!”* with 1 star ratings to boot.

Fortunately, it’s an easy process to claim these unofficial pages and then deal with the bad reviews. MEDrefer has written a guide to show you how to do so, step by step.

You have the option to Claim the page (so you can edit the unofficial page) or Merge the page into another page you create or already own. Merging the page will allow you to keep all check in reviews and page likes, but remove all the other page information which was on the unofficial page.

*Real comment from a review on an unofficial Facebook page.

How to Fix Unofficial Facebook Pages

Firstly, check if you have an unofficial Facebook page for your practice. You can easily do this by typing the name of the practice into the Facebook search bar and checking the results that appear.

How to Merge or Claim an Unofficial Page

1. Visit the unofficial page that you wish to merge or claim.
2. Click on the ellipsis (…) at the top right of the page, next to Like, Save, Suggest Edits.
3. On the menu that appears, click on “Is This Your Business?”
4. You will have two options: Claim the page, or Merge the page.
5. Select the option you wish to use.
6. You will need to provide a business phone number OR copies of business documents so Facebook can verify your ownership of the business.

Note: Both “Merging” and “Claiming” will not remove or change reviews.

2 Ways to Deal with Bad Check in Reviews

Unfortunately, Facebook does not allow you to pick and choose which reviews show on your business page. There are two main options to deal with bad reviews.

1. Claim the unofficial page where the bad reviews appear and then delete it in the settings section.
2. On the page which has the bad reviews, click on the About section, Page Info, then the Edit button beside the address section. Uncheck the box next to Show map, check-ins and star ratings on the Page. This will remove all reviews AND the review option from your page.

Creating a New Page (OPTIONAL)

1. Visit this link and click +Create a Page at the top. Link: https://www.facebook.com/bookmarks/pages
2. Select ‘Local Business or Place’
3. Some categories suitable for medical practices include: Doctor, Hospital/Clinic or Health/Medical/Pharmacy. You can add extra categories once you finish setting up your Facebook page
4. Fill in the information in each step or skip to come back and do it later.

An example unofficial Facebook page with 6 reviews, 13 likes and a 2.2/5 star rating.

Does all this seem far too complicated? Contact MEDrefer and our helpful support staff will be happy to help you further with any issues you may be facing with your Facebook page/s. You can contact us by email via mail@medrefer.com.au or phone 1800 556 022

Should you wish investigate having your own website, we can also help.