Healthgrades

This is the worst website ever, they do allow people to place reviews online without verifying the information if accurate or not. I called them to dispute an inaccurate review placed by an unhappy patient, which was discharged from our practice for non payment and bad behavior, they would not even talk to me, could not verify the patient review, nor they had a proof it is accurate. Same happened to my other colleagues and is hard to understand how this company is still in business. They should be taken to court for destroying physicians' businesses and posting lies on their website, without verifying the information, or having a proof is accurate.

How is this website even legal? Promoting defamation and one of the most unethical and biased ways in reviewing a physician. Patients I haven't seen making a complaint. How is this website allowed to gather personal information such as listing a physician's age. A class action lawsuit needs to be started to put an end to such illegal activity.

I am an Occupational Therapist who doesn't own a practice anywhere. Somehow this awful place got ahold of an NPI that was given to me by a contract company over 10 yrs ago (2005). Since then I don't have an NPI anymore. Now, my name comes to the top of Google search with bad reviews for people I have never seen (probably a disgruntled boyfriend). Healthgrades refuses to remove my name, address, ph no. What a terrible rotten service. Follow the money, this organization is probably run by George Soros or some other evil philanthropist.

Healthgrades is a completely unethical and biased website. I don't understand what they get from it but for some reason they only published a horrible comment about my physician and when I read the comment, I added my own complimentary comment which was NOT published. I wrote to them and a person by the name of Armando wrote back to say that they WERE properly recorded! I kept checking and they were NEVER published! That was October 2016 and to this day, my comment has not appeared.

An investigation needs to be conducted into the practices of Healthgrades! Something stinks to high heaven here!

I have been going to Dr. ** for a few years now. I believe he shows much concern for his patients. He will explain fully and shows compassion for his patients. I will continue with his service and believe he will strive to find the solution to my and any other patients problems.

Healthgrades' Board justifies their data capture policy by stating that providers' information is openly populated on the net. That part is true. Evidently, in their view, this gives them free license to vacuum up providers' names and create a site that makes money from our intellectual property from a variety of revenue streams. Great business strategy, horrible ethics. What their policy can never justify is their strategy of coupling a data sweep with unvetted customer reviews.

As far as I know, Healthgrades is the only healthcare site that 1) amalgamates providers' data without offering an opt in or opt out; AND, this is the key point, allows anyone - even non-patients - to write a review with no filter! Their excuses not to be able to vet reviews ring false. Amazon, for example, has a system for unhappy customers to seek mediation with the seller until the complaint is resolved. The negative review then can be expunged. So, there are ways to manage negative reviews to everyone's satisfaction. The only justification must be their bottom line -- the cost for staff to manage these instances.

The unintended consequences for providers are numerous. Two examples: 1) If a patient has not paid a bill in a timely fashion and then the provider informs the patient his account may go to collections, the patient can then post a scurrilous review to justify non-payment; as a result, the provider risks further retaliatory negative reviews from the patient's friends if he/she does go to collections or small claims court. This is terribly frustrating and unfair, especially if one is a sole practitioner. Healthgrades platform not only affects providers' reputations but also their income! 2) While Healthgrades site now offers providers a response option for negative reviews, there is a double-edged sword to be considered. Personally, I am not comfortable with this option as, first, it could come across as defensive, and secondly, a response could also result in retaliation. It's better just to ignore the review. Easier said than done.

I've being mulling writing this review for months. Being human, an unfair hit on your integrity is hard to swallow. Healthgrades clearly doesn't understand -- or perhaps, care -- about this impact on providers. Our hands are effectively tied. Healthgrades Board: Speaking on behalf of all healthcare providers, we care deeply about a dedicated quality of care for our patients. The code we daily do our best to live by is "do no harm." We are not restaurants or movies that can be rated 1 - 5 stars. Your open platform diminishes our work and harms us professionally and personally. Please reconsider your policies.

I left a positive review for my original doctor who has retired and I left a negative review for the doctor that replaced him. My positive review was never uploaded and my negative review was changed to a 3 star review.

Healthgrades is dishonest and unfair. We never signed up and now receive negative reviews from people who are NOT our patients and we have no way of responding. We called the customer service line and they said they could not take these bogus reviews done. Also, this website allows disgruntled patients to write whatever they want, even if it's untrue without being challenged, which reflects negatively to my practice. I pay for my own service, Demand Force which allows us to always address any negative thoughts or comments. I don't want my practice listed on this website, it's unfair and dishonest. The reviews are bogus and many are not true. Please address this issue. I am not the only doctor that feels this way.

Will not let you leave a positive review or make corrections on reviews, even after exhausted attempts to do so. I am aware that most internet reviews are negative, because most people only post reviews when things don't work out for them.

My business never got reviewed before this individual began to leave slanderous and blatantly false comments that could negatively affect my business. The reviews from healthgrades.com also managed to show up on the top whenever a google search is done for my business. It all started when I sent a delinquent payment case to collection and had to go to court twice to resolve the issue. All the bad reviews (with 1 star) I got since seem to be posted by the same person even though different names were used and vicious and baseless in the nature. All the reviews have grammatical errors, which also indicates they could be posted by a same individual.

Contacted Healthgrades multiple times about the issues since Oct 6 and they said they would look into it but I never heard from them until I called only to find out they didn't do anything yet as of today (Dec 1). If they really go through proper verification process as they claim, they should have known the reviews left on my business are abusive and absurd. Healthgrades should allow either that any review (positive or negative) be not posted for the business or that the business name be removed completely from the site so that dedicated professionals like me do not suffer frustrating and unnecessary nuisances. Google did remove a false and defamatory review presumably posted by the same individual right away just by flagging it. Why can't Healthgrades do the same?

They are using the bad reviews to get doctors to try and offset them by getting more people to sign up, then they apparently sell the email addresses to marketers. The positive reviews are often left out, which many of my patients have told me and others have complained about this here. They don't care what people say on this site, but they apparently do resolve complaints through the Better Business Bureau: www.bbb.org. I suggest that all of the providers who have complained here post their views on the BBB website and file a complaint there. The patients can likewise file complaints for false advertising because they are relying on these websites to find providers and they are getting skewed results that may be leading away from perfectly good health care professionals just so Healthgrades can make a quick buck from their email addresses.

I am not long out of residency and I am trying to build a practice. I do not have the time or the resources to sue a company like Healthgrades, but many others here have posted that they have tried to get blatantly false information removed and they were fed up and ready for class action. I really hope this happens. The people with "resolved" complaints with the BBB simply had the survey function removed, or had their names removed from the site. Healthgrades pays Google to get their results at the top, and if you advertise your practice with Google, they will link your Google Plus with your address and hours etc. right next to your rating from Healthgrades. Having them tell you then that you can choose between having misleading, libelous or possibly even vindictive reviews from your competitors (with nothing vetted), or you can have nothing at all (which is almost as bad if you are trying to attract new patients), is unfair.

I could easily start up dozens of email addresses and put in glowing reviews for myself, and possibly a few other mildly negative ones with responses to them that make me seem human and forgivable, but I have enough integrity that the thought of that makes me feel physically ill. I would rather just have ALL the reviews, with a chance to contest the ridiculous ones, and then let the chips fall where they may. I am not perfect, but I am dedicated and hard working, and I genuinely care about doing what is right for my patients. If doing that makes some of them angry because I refuse to give them narcotics for "depression" then they should not be able to say whatever they want about me on Healthgrades and have Healthgrades leave it up on their site no matter how absurd the review is, or if it was not even from a patient that I actually saw.

Horrible site. My patients told me they have tried to post excellent reviews, but only one negative review shows up, which is slanderous and a personal attack. I have contacted Healthgrades multiple times, and they do not respond. Any class action lawsuit would be welcome, please include me. This site should be taken down because it destroys the reputation of good practitioners.

I am a physician who received a review from a patient that threatened me physically. I had him escorted out from my office but now the patient has written one review citing me as unprofessional. There is also one other review using the same language on the same day that I saw the patient in the office later on. I think this is unfair and never signed up for a Healthgrades account. I have decided to change the location of my practice over this and want my profile taken down so that it doesn't affect me at my new practice but have received no response from Healthgrades with regard to my inquiries to do so. Please help!

I am finding out what they cannot be trusted. Tried to put up a review on a Dr. ** that butchered me on a amputation revision. He botched it big time. The reason he gave for doing it? He "Didn't like the way the last surgeon left it" and they would not allow a negative review.

I have been trying for six months to have Healthgrades remove a review that was on the WRONG doctor. I had never seen the individual and was clear that she saw another physician with a similar name in the same town. Not only will they not remove it - they have been unwilling to allow my comment below the erroneous review. This is a sleazy company. Unreliable reviews. If ever there was a case for a class action suit against a company, HEALTHGRADES fits the bill.

While multiple patients have reported that their positive reviews of our practice never showed up on the site, Healthgrades permits false/slanderous comments from unverified reviewers! Our practice has received two 1-star reviews that included false accusations. In both cases the reviews accused of actions that, if true, would be tantamount to malpractice. In both cases we knew who the accusers were because of the dates of their statements & certain comments made in their reviews.

After the initial incident we filed a complaint with Healthgrades. They stated that they would review the case, but weeks later they had not responded. When we contacted them for follow-up, they stated that they had essentially done their job by "verifying that the reviewer used a legitimate email address"! As has been mentioned by others whom have had problems with Healthgrades, their "solution" was for our practice to solicit positive reviews to offset the negative. (Our practice will NOT ask patients to write positive reviews to attempt to fluff up our rating.)

After the second false review, when we attempted to log on to issue a response to the reviewer, Healthgrades had updated their terms of use. Now in order to write a rebuttal to a negative comment, one has to essentially waive the right to litigate against Healthgrades for any reason AND give them basically absolute rights to the practice's information on their site! To make matters worse, they have managed to have their site always come up ranked first on all of the major search engines, even higher than the official websites of the practices for which they provide these bogus reviews. I truly believe that it's time for a class action lawsuit! They are NOT helping patients by slandering good, responsible physicians & practices. If someone has a REAL malpractice complaint, get a lawyer & prove it. Don't hide behind anonymity & try to ruin someone's reputation!

I'm waiting for Healthgrades to get back to me about a new, clearly incorrect rating. Additionally they have my profile and even state wrong. I practice only in Florida visiting home-bound geriatric patients, but someone in Pennsylvania gave me one star, complaining about "staff" that I don't even have. Healthgrade is touting themselves as providing useful data to patients, so they have a duty not to knowingly post fraudulent data. That would be negligent, and cause harm. If anyone has advice how to get Healthgrades to do the right thing, let me know. Also we should all write to Google to explain why Healthgrades shouldn't get top billing. Also we should contact Healthgrades' advertisers to suggest advertising on a more reputable site. Also, regarding class action, count me in if they don't remove my profile or remove the fake review within 3 days.

I am a physician and I disagree with how Health grades shows their ratings. I had positive reviews that never showed up and some that have been taken down. The negatives show up front and center though. Negative reviews often show up if we refuse to give narcotics or in one case when I reported child abuse.

Dr. Melvin ** - I wrote a negative review for this doctor. He treated me for almost three months for an eye allergy and when I went for a second opinion I was diagnosed with eye lymphoma. This review was completely removed from health grades. If this site is going to hide negative reviews it should not be in business. This is a deception to the public that rely on honest reviews.

I wanted to write a review of dr ** because I feel that this man is getting treated unfairly by the justice system and by the local papers. I have dr ** as my doctor since 1994 and he has been the best doctor for me. I have never had any complaints about him and his practice in loveland. When dr ** did all my operations he always came by after the operation and seen how I was doing. Even after I have been released he always kept in contact with me at my home with a personal phone from him, and not from a nurse. His bedside manners were always beyond par.

He would go out of his way to be sure I was doing good, And through the years he had always been there for me in my health. Dr ** was always a professional at all time. He was friendly and always down to earth with his jokes and his good attitude. And through the years at his practice all of his personnel were always professional. It was a doctors office that you wanted to go to because of the way they treated their patients.

Every one that I recommended to Dr ** came and told me that they would continue going back to him and his practice. I believe in my heart that whatever has happened to would be a probably a upset patient that didnt feel that they got the best care. I believe in my heart that you will realize that Dr. ** is a very good doctor and a excellent surgeon. All the surgeries that dr ** has done to me has made my life easier and less pain to live with. Without him I would be in excruciating pain and not wanting to enjoy my life.

Dr ** always prescribed the correct pain medication and never gave me anything that not work. He always stated to me he goes by the doctors code and never deviates away from it. I believe he is a law abiding man with great morals and loyalty. And if doctor ** ever resumes his practice I will be first in line for him to be my practician. And I still would recommend him to my friends. Thanks for listening. If you have any question please feel free to contact me.

I tried to leave a honest, helpful review of a ER doctor. The doctor almost cost me my life and I thought others should know. But Healthgrades refuse to post my review. Healthgrades is NOT reliable or honest.

Blocked my review. I was giving an honest review on Dr. **. It may have been a bad one but he has left me deformed for life and told me to just live with it, I would adapt. I am unable to return to my former job, resulting in a cut in pay. Also causing me a lot of pain and suffering both physically and mentally and when I post this on Healthgrades site on reviews they won't post it/block it. I would assume because I made the statement. I would NOT recommend this Dr. to anyone.

I notice out of 195 responses Healthgrades has essentially a 1.0. This is not surprising since only the people that have complaints tend to write reviews and I doubt that Healthgrades asks people to write reviews. I have what I hope is a very rare experience with Healthgrades. In the last two weeks I have asked patients if they would write a review in the Healthgrades review section. The patients have told me that they have filled out the survey that Healthgrades gives but in subsequent days they do not see their review. In fact the review stays at 23 reviews. I have emailed Healthgrades for a response and I will them to see what they say. They seem to be able to post negative reviews and ignore positive reviews.

I assume the people I ask reviews are not writing negative reviews and Healthgrades is deleting them. The patients tell me they are writing positive reviews and I accept what they say. It is premature to form an opinion until I get a response from Healthgrades and I will come back to this board with their response assuming somebody will talk to me or email me back. If they correct this problem I will come back and give them a good rating and if I I get no response or they don't have have a good explanation I will come back and give them a poor rating. I really wish I would not have to rate them at this point without giving them a chance to respond. It would be like someone coming to my office seeing a lot patients and leaving and writing a negative review. It would not be fair.

A negative review was posted about my practice by someone located in Plano, Texas. My practice is located in Delaware, and furthermore, there are no patients from Plano, TX in our computer database. I asked Healthgrades to remove the review, but was told I should solicit additional patients to write positive reviews. It was also suggested that I complete my profile. I refused to do either since this would only serve to legitimize their website.

I received a one-star rating with no comments by an anonymous "patient." I actually see very few patients in my current job and I suspected this was a fraudulent review. I contacted Healthgrades and expressed my concerns and I received a response from "Olivia" saying that there would be an "investigation." A month later, I had heard nothing. I wrote again, asking the status of the "investigation" and no one from Healthgrades bothered to respond. This company allows itself to be a platform for people to attack the professional reputation of doctors, whether their complaints are based in reality or not.

A patient seeking inappropriate prescriptions and does not receive them could post negative comments about the doctor and Healthgrades does absolutely nothing to stop it. Their quality control is poor, as they list a work address where I have not worked for several years. If anyone wants to initiate a class action lawsuit against this dishonest company, count me in.

I am a small company that works with doctors, dentists and chiropractors (and other businesses) in South Florida. I manage their marketing, reputation online and provide practice consulting to grow their sales. I began working with Healthgrades.com last summer (2015) to setup an account so that my providers I work with could have a "premium account" which is basically a paid advertisement that shows above all other providers with free profiles. At first Healthgrades was really responsive and on top of the ball. They provided me with documentation that showed how to maximize my providers outreach to patients and gain their feedback. They also set up monthly calls with me to go over the providers profiles and how well they were performing. Part of the premium account was that each provider would be given monthly metrics on calls and clicks, profile views and more.

The first month was great, the reports were provided and a call was issued from my rep to explain how to read the reports. However, that was the last time I would hear from a rep at Healthgrades.com. I had several issues that needed to be corrected with paying profiles, I would not get a return email. I tried calling several times and would get passed around from different departments to only end up at a general voicemail box. I left messages and never got a return call. Months went by and my frustration grew. I had several providers on a premium account and could not provide them with the promised metrics on their accounts. They had no way of measuring their success which is completely absurd these days as there are many other programs that offer real-time stats.

I got a call in January from someone in their accounting department. Keep in mind, I'd not heard back from any of the reps or sales people even after ALL my emails and phone calls. The lady in accounting was calling to collect payment on the account, my first response to her was, "What am I paying for?" I have nothing to show these providers yet you want me to ask them to pay you? I showed her all my unanswered emails and told her of the unreturned calls, she seemed to feel bad for my situation and said that she would handle it and get my reports. In return I promised to send the check for the payments owed ($3,000). My check was sent via courier and it was cashed. Their reports showed up a few days later but in an unorganized excel spreadsheet that I had to go through and separate all the providers myself.

NOTHING like what I had been getting the first month, with providers names and photo and nicely organized stats. To be honest, at this point I was just happy to see some reports. I had sent a few more emails in February and March requesting some changes to a provider's profile information and with a question regarding an unknown negative review that a provider stated was false and could prove otherwise. He requested it to be removed. I did get a response from the rep at Healthgrades, that the matter would be escalated and she would let me know if it were approved. I've heard nothing and my follow up emails have gone unanswered.

No contact, no reports... zero anything from Healthgrades UNTIL last Friday May 19th I get an email from a gentleman that works in accounting. He says the other lady no longer works with Healthgrades and that my account is now on his desk. If I don't pay my outstanding bill (3 months of invoices) they are going send my account to an outside collection and that I would be responsible for any legal bills that occurred because of it. My account was also to be terminated with them if I didn't overnight a check for the full amount owed. I immediately picked up the phone and called him directly. To my surprise he answered. He didn't seem to want to hear my side of the story at first but he started to understand my position and told me this was not the way the company did business. He stated he would get the proper departments to contact me with reports BUT that he needed me to send payment or the account would still be terminated.

Funny how when they need money they are there to answer phones but when the client or providers need something it's like a ghost town. I started to wonder if my issues were because I was a small (5 provider) account and that perhaps I was being overlooked because other reps had larger accounts. The accountant on the phone said that didn't matter, everyone was treated the same.

To be honest, I'm not sure why I've continued to do business with Healthgrades, they've certainly not held up their end of the deal and provided what was owed to me, yet they demand payment. It is now 5 days since my phone call with the accountant and I had to reach out to them yet again to inquire about the reports they promised. I will be terminating my account with them and taking my business elsewhere. I've had dealings with other medical directories online and they are true business people, this company doesn't deserve the attention, they are selfish and clearly in it only for the money and NOT to help providers.

Yeah, Healthgrades is not a good site. I am a physician with over ten years experience. I have never had a bad review. Suddenly I did, but the person just left stars without any comments as to what they thought I had done wrong. So, I did an experiment. Not only can anonymous emails leave reviews, they can do so FROM THE SAME EMAIL ACCOUNT about every two weeks. In my experiment, I must have added reviews for a false physician about 10 times in a 20 wk. period from the same email address. Yes, that is fair. If someone doesn't like my care, fine let them review me, but really is it right for them to be able to trash me more than once?

I started my new practice a few months ago and was shocked to see a "one-star" review by an "anonymous patient". Since I do not see patients in-person due to the nature of my practice, the questions answered in the review by the so-called and "anonymous patient" are not applicable to me. I contacted Healthgrades.com and conveyed my concerns to them. They told me that they will conduct a review of my complaint. Weeks later, I heard back from their customer service informing me that their "investigation", which is solely based on confirming a person's email address (anyone can make as many free email addresses as one like!), is complete and the bogus review will stay. I completely agree with other reviewers that there needs to be class action lawsuit against Healthgrades.com for damaging professional reputations.

I have been in private practice for over 15 years and handle most complaints personally. I was shocked when I received an email from Healthgrades inviting me to their site to view "ratings" from supposed clients. I was given no way to view the ratings unless I created an account with their site. Doing so offered little help, however, as I was forbidden from viewing anything more than a cumulative 3.5 rating with no access to comments or breakdown from those who rated me. I have tried communicating my objections to Healthgrades for the past several months but to no avail. They take days or weeks to respond and refuse to allow me access to details of the respondents. In testing the site for my medical provider I found that anyone with an email can sign in and literally say anything and the provider will have no ability to defend him/herself. I agree with earlier providers that a class action suit needs to be filed and will be looking into pursuing that.

There is a review on my profile from a person with no name posting from a city that I don't have any patient from. I cannot recall the story that is on the review and none of my staff can do it. It's about a different option which can go wrong anytime. Anyway, we called Healthgrades and they said they cannot do anything about it. I also asked that I want to opt out of their site and they said I cannot unless I will retire. How can a business that has so many complaints can take reviews about our names without our permission and not even verifying them?? I am pretty sure that review is fake as I do not have any patients from that place and we do not have anything in our notes about a case like this? Any defamation lawsuit against this company!!! I do not want to be part of their business since they cannot control their reviews.