In a world increasingly dominated by social media and smart phones, it’s important to remember that prospective patients can access information about a physician almost instantaneously. As marketers, it is important to focus on the online reputation of employed physicians.

For restaurants, bars and spas, we look to Yelp to find out what other people are saying about local destinations. But what about healthcare? While Yelp has a home for health and medical reviews, we can’t forget about niche review sites dedicated to reviewing and rating specific physicians like Vitals and Healthgrades. Fortunately, a study by the folks at DocSpot shows that 65% of online reviews of healthcare professionals gave the highest rating possible, and 3 out of 4 reviews rated the physicians either a 4 or a 5 on a 5-point scale.

That being said, it’s important to ensure that physicians have listings on the popular review sites; they can be a very powerful tool in promoting a physician and building their online and mobile presence.

One of the more popular healthcare review sites – Vitals – even has a mobile app tailored to show the user the top 10 rated physicians within their area. The app has received 54 reviews in the App Story with an average rating of 3 out of 6 stars. One user reviewed the app saying, “A lot of useful information if you’ve had trouble finding good doctors.” Another user said, “Tried to schedule initial Dr. visit but was provided inaccurate contact information.” Both of these comments teach us very valuable lessons: consumers find physician reviews to be useful in making an informed decision about choosing a healthcare provider, and not leveraging these tools to provide current information for your physicians could be deterring prospective patients.

As a consumer, do you utilize review sites when searching for healthcare providers? As a marketer, have you built managing online review sites for physicians into your strategy?