Guidance/Advice Physician bought practice and has poor reviews...

[valentinb13]

I posted this originally in the Reviews forum, but this is now coming back around and becoming a potential "multiple profiles issue"

Client has taken over a practice from a previous doctor. The previous doctor is no longer affiliated with the practice at all. For all intents and purposes it's a new practice utilizing an existing practice name. Our client also has an existing profile for a very similar practice (but currently at a different address).

She is planning on consolidating practices and relocating to the old/poorly reviewed practice's location.

Couple questions:

• What course of action is there to have the old, very negative reviews of the previous doctor/owner removed? Is it only possible to flag the reviews and submit an appeal if denied?
• Should she permanently close the old practice and just rename the new profile for both practices (her new website will effectively be this way)?
• Should we merge the old listing with the new listing? But this will preserve the bad reviews

Also, what value would there be in her having her own physician profile?

 

[JoyHawkins]

You probably should just report it as closed if you don't want the reviews. The only crappy thing about that approach is now people searching the old doctor won't find the new one.

You could try asking support to move the old listing without moving the reviews but I'm not confident they will be willing to do that.

 

[valentinb13]

You probably should just report it as closed if you don't want the reviews. The only crappy thing about that approach is now people searching the old doctor won't find the new one.

You could try asking support to move the old listing without moving the reviews but I'm not confident they will be willing to do that.

So my one concern with marking it as closed is the current doc already has a few 5 star reviews. She doesn't seem too worried about the current good reviews, she seems to just want to get rid of the association with the negative reviews/doc. The negative reviews are over 2 years old. I know that often older reviews are discounted by searchers, but I'm not sure if that's an industry specific thing — this being a medical/surgery profile, I wonder if the old, negative reviews would still hold sway.

Another thing I've wondered about, and @whitespark Darren has mentioned, is that in some instances permanently closed listings can affect the filtering of live listings when they share duplicate info. That's why I'm thinking the merging is a better option.

 

[JoyHawkins]

So they share the same website and phone number? If that's the case I can see it being confusing. If all they share is the address I wouldn't worry.

I agree that merging is the way to go but it won't remove the reviews.