Building trust, credibility, and transparency with Practo Feedback
We are changing the way India accesses healthcare. We are on a mission to empower patients with the information that they can trust, and we cannot accomplish it without the cooperation of our doctor partners. Feedback is a great way for our clinic/hospital partners to create that initial trust and for them to use it to help other patients discover them. With Feedback, we strive to be the bridge between you and your patients that strengthens the doctor-patient relationship.
What is Feedback?
Feedback is a feature for users to express how their appointment with a doctor went. It helps other patients make an informed decision, and doctors to get a better insight into the consultation experience of a patient.
Did you know?
- There are over 4.5 million verified Feedback on Practo
- 70% of patients prefer reading Feedback before booking an appointment with a doctor
How Feedback works?
- Practo reaches out to users via SMS/WhatsApp/Email within 4 days after their appointment and asks them for Feedback. They are free to write feedback anytime after their appointment. Our full-proof system restricts a person from giving more than one feedback for a single appointment. So, you can be rest assured that only authentic feedback responses reflect on your profile.
- If a healthcare service provider owns a profile on Practo Search, uses Practo Ray and/or Practo Tab, Practo Feedback gathers feedback responses from users regarding their experience with them. These responses are displayed on a service provider’s profile page on Practo.com and Practo smartphone apps.
- We encourage all healthcare providers and establishments to make the most of this tool to reach out and interact with their patients and build credibility for their practice.
| What Feedback is | What Feedback is not |
| Patient’s first-hand experience only | Biased, paid or promotional |
| Transparent, authentic and helpful | Comment on a doctor’s medical ability |
| Thoroughly reviewed, verified, and moderated by Practo | A platform for threats, obscenity or hatred |
How is the moderation done?
We have a team of in-house experts that examine questionable Feedback. Each Feedback is evaluated as a whole and put through the filter of Practo Feedback Standards. A moderator can take the following actions on any questionable feedback:
- Publish
- Withhold for investigation
- Decline to publish
In addition, we use automated tools on the site that help flag questionable content for review. The majority of Feedback is posted within 48 working hours of submission. If a Feedback is flagged for a closer look by our moderators, it may take longer. However, if the feedback uses inappropriate language or seems spam we don’t publish it.
As long as feedback meets our guidelines, we’re happy to post it whether it’s positive or negative.
- Over 1000 Feedback verified manually every day by Practo!
What is non-compliant Feedback?
- Doctors writing feedback for own practice.
- Asking friends or relatives or practice staff to write feedback.
- Submitting feedback on behalf of a user.
- Copying comment cards and submitting them as feedback.
- Pressurizing Practo or a user to remove feedback.
- Offering incentives such as discounts, upgrades or any special treatment in exchange for feedback.
- Hiring an optimization company, a third party marketing organization, or anyone to submit false feedback.
- Any other suspicious activity on unnatural patterns in feedback which indicates that feedback might not be genuine.
- A healthcare service provider attempting to promote/ malign his/her competitors by submitting feedback.
Note: Practo reserves the right to not remove feedback for a doctor from any profile page once they stop practicing at a particular clinic or hospital.
Steps against providers or establishments generating non-compliant feedback
Depending on the nature & severity of the non-compliance, one of the following steps may be taken:
- Removal of non-compliant feedback along with due notice and/or warning to the healthcare provider or establishment.
- Repeated instances can lead to the provider or establishments losing the benefit that good feedback brings to the visibility and relevance on Practo.com
- Re-verification of all the feedback submitted by the patients for that provider or establishment, via SMS or any other suitable channel.
- Removal/Un-publishing of all feedback on Practo.com for that provider or establishment.
Our message, loud and clear
Any attempt to mislead, influence or impersonate a user will be subject to penalty.
Guidelines for Feedback collected by Healthcare Providers directly
For feedback collected directly by healthcare providers, it is subject to additional guidelines given below:
For feedback collected in-premise (at the clinic/ hospital):
- We need the exact appointment details for the patient submitting this feedback.
- Using the appointment details, we will reach out to your patients and collect their feedback (please note that feedback collected in-premise by the healthcare provider is not published on Practo).
For feedback collected off-premise (by communication channels such as SMS and email):
- We will publish this feedback and verify the same as per our standard process.
For feedback collected for an online consultation:
We will publish this feedback and verify the same as per our standard process.
General Feedback guidelines doctors should keep in mind
- Own your Profile
Take absolute ownership of your profile. This helps you keep it updated and build trust with patients. Make sure you respond to each and every Feedback published on your profile.
- Say No to Profanity
We strongly discourage obscenities, threats, prejudiced comments, hate speeches, sexually explicit language, or any kind of inappropriate content.
- Have Your Say
Be proactive when communicating with users. Even if you receive negative feedback, respond to it fairly. If you think that the user is wrong or expecting too much, you can explain the rationale behind your actions. It will help you establish trust with other users too.
- Do Not Advertise
Do not post promotional material like self-promoting URLs, feedback, email address, or phone numbers for self or any other healthcare service provider. We reserve the right to take down such data.
- Do not manipulate or misuse Feedback system
We take feedback compliance extremely seriously. If any Feedback is found to have undergone any sort of gaming or bias by our algorithms, Practo reserves the right to not publish it.
- Do not reveal the patient’s information
Never disclose any personal information of your patient. According to MCI guidelines, the healthcare professional cannot reveal sensitive information about the patient’s health condition on any public forum. Any responses bearing personal/medical information of the patient, which is not mentioned in the patient’s feedback, will not be published.
Frequently asked questions
How does feedback help me?
Studies have shown that feedback responses – both positive and negative – are crucial in building a user’s trust. They also give you, as a healthcare service provider, a deeper understanding of the needs and expectations of patients.
What information do you collect via feedback?
Practo Feedback Collection System currently asks users about their appointment experience. The information that we collect would primarily be categorized as below:
- Recommendation – whether the user would recommend the healthcare service provider to his/her friends and family.
- Wait-Time – how long the Practo user had to wait for his/her appointment.
- Feedback about Healthcare Service Provider – User’s testimonial about appointment experience with the healthcare service provider.
- Health Issue – Reason to visit the healthcare service provider.
Where do I see this feedback?
Feedback and recommendations collected via Practo Feedback are updated on Practo.com and on Practo’s smartphone apps. However, the recommendation score is visible only if the doctor receives 10 or more recommendations. In case there are less than 10 recommendations, we don’t display anything at all. As far as the appointment experience score is concerned, we display that only if we have received 5 or more patient feedback on the clinic.
How do I enable/disable Practo Feedback?
As a Practo doctor partner, you can open the feedback tab inside Practo Ray, and enable Practo Feedback. We’ll start collecting feedback once you’ve enabled it.
You can also disable it from the same place. We’ll stop collecting feedback once you’ve disabled it, but disabling Feedback does not remove previously collected feedback responses on your profile.
What should I do to make sure I benefit from Practo Feedback?
Three things you should do to let Practo Feedback help you would be:
- Enable Practo Feedback.
- Try to get complete contact information including email address and mobile numbers from Practo users who come to you, so that Practo can reach out to them effectively.
- Tell them about the feedback communication they will receive from Practo.
How much does Practo Feedback cost?
Feedback collected from users who book an appointment via Practo is currently a free service. The service for collecting feedback from users who visit Practo Ray-enabled healthcare establishment is free for a limited time.
Why are you providing Practo Feedback for free?
A Practo user’s decision to choose a healthcare service provider might be largely governed by feedback responses of his/her previous patients/customers. We want healthcare service providers to experience the benefits of Practo Feedback. With feedback responses on Practo, you’ll get to know your patients/customers better. This can help you understand and meet their expectations with ease.
Can I contact patients/customers who give feedback?
You can reply to the patients/customers who have submitted feedback for you. Please be thankful or take the criticism positively wherever necessary. Remember they have nothing personal against you and a kind word from you can change his mind.
Can I moderate feedback about me before it gets posted? If not, who will do it?
For feedback to remain authentic, only Practo’s Feedback Moderation Team can filter out personal, offensive or abusive feedback. You can report feedback to us in case you wish for us to review it. Contact us on support@practo.com.
Will Practo Feedback affect my ranking on Practo.com?
Yes, Feedback certainly has a part to play in the Practo Relevance Algorithm. We see enabling feedback as a positive step towards transparency and trust and your commitment will be acknowledged.
How fair is Practo’s feedback system?
The Practo Feedback System limits the number of SMS and emails sent to a particular user to one-per-month, even if he/she books more than one appointment during this period. This ensures a sufficient cool-off period between subsequent feedback responses from the same user and a robust and fair feedback model.
How does Practo define non-compliant feedback?
The following leads to Practo categorizing feedback as non-compliant:
A healthcare service provider or healthcare establishment attempting to boost his/her/its own property’s reputation by:
- Writing feedback for his/her own practice.
- Asking friends or relatives to write feedback.
- Submitting feedback on behalf of a user.
- Copying comment cards and submitting them as feedback.
- Pressurizing Practo or a user to remove feedback.
- Offering incentives such as discounts, upgrades or any special treatment in exchange for feedback.
- Hiring an optimization company, a third party marketing organization, or anyone to submit false feedback.
- A healthcare service provider attempting to promote/ malign his/her competitors by submitting feedback (e.g. a doctor giving feedback for another doctor).
I have more questions. Whom do I talk to?
You can always reach out to Practo Support (support@practo.com) and we will do our best to resolve your queries asap.