A wrong-doctor review that quietly buried me in the booking results
This account was submitted by a healthcare provider and de-identified before publication. Details that could identify a patient or practice have been removed, and it is shared with the provider’s consent.
A negative review described an appointment booked through a different system, on a date when I was not practicing, clearly aimed at another physician entirely.
On Zocdoc, where the rating feeds directly into how often and how prominently you are shown to patients searching for a new doctor, a mismatched one star review does concrete, measurable harm to bookings. There should be a simple mechanism for "this is the wrong doctor," and there is not.
So an algorithm quietly shows me to fewer prospective patients because of someone else's visit to someone else's office. It is a frustrating, invisible penalty, because I cannot see exactly how many appointments it costs me, only that the review sits there lowering my standing.
I flagged the discrepancy, pointing out the date and the booking channel that was not mine, and was told they do not mediate factual disputes between patients and providers. I asked whether they could at least verify the appointment against their own booking data, and got no substantive reply.