Exactly, exactly. Well, I have a presentation here that I think I can very nicely

Transcription

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2 The following is an actual transcript of the ChiroSecure Live Event with Dr. Stu Hoffman and Dr. Sam Collins. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible; however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors. If you have any questions about the transcript or would like to request any transcripts from our previous shows, feel free to contact us at Hello, everybody. I want to thank you for joining us again for another ChiroSecure live event. Today, we're going to be talking about reputation management. I have two great guests with us today, and we're going to be covering something that so many of you ask me about all the time. We get calls about, what do I do if someone puts a bad review on Google or Facebook or Yelp or anything else? How do I handle good reviews from patients, but they may say, "Oh, he cured my diabetes," or, "He cured this or that," which, as we know, does not fly in most places, and how do you respond to patients and nonpatient inquiries on social media? What about patient testimonials on your website? Are any of these things going to be HIPAA violations? What do we need to know? What do we need to do to safeguard our practice, our license, and our reputation? We want to also make sure that patients sign proper release forms, so we want to make sure you are safeguarded. What makes this show really special is that here at ChiroSecure, we have to take the subject where no one else has taken it, at least that I'm aware of. You have to know how to handle your online reputation, because there are HIPAA laws that determine what you can and can't do as an online marketer or communicator. In some places, there is no overlap in terms of your online marketing from anyone else that's doing it, but today, one of my guests is Michael Luevano. He connected with us here at ChiroSecure, and he's helped us to become number one in all of the rankings, and we've, really appreciate that, but for today's purpose, we want to make sure that we offer to you, through Michael, what we can do from a marketer's perspective rather than another chiropractor's perspective alone, and after we get involved a little bit back and forth with Michael, I'm going to bring Sam Collins into our conversation as well, and most of you already know Sam, because Sam is HJ Ross. He is our billing and coding and documentation expert, along with HIPAA, and we'll talk about what we can do to help each and every one of you in terms of making sure you have a HIPAA compliance program already established in your office, so that you're always ready to go, but first, I want to welcome Michael. Michael, thanks for being here with us today, and it's so nice to get you to join us and help educate our doctors, and I think that they're going to get a lot out of what you have to offer. Based on your experience, in terms of online marketing, what are some of the things that you get to see that we should be aware of? Michael Luevano: Well, yeah, I'd like to just comment on something that you were just talking about, which is that we've got you ranked for the strategic keywords that you'd want to be seen for, but that's just half of it, and so the other half that, I think, is

3 even as critical, if not more, is how the customers engage, and that's why this whole reputation, online reputation management, is so key to that element, because we obviously want them to find you, but then once they find you, we want them to pick up the phone and call you, and that's how this is going to play out and why it's so, so important to your business. Michael Luevano: Michael Luevano: That's cool, and that's exactly what, how our doctors would want to know, is, what do they need to do specifically, based on your expertise, that will help them not only get new patients in the door, but also deal with the communication in the correct way so that we can be in good shape? Exactly, exactly. Well, I have a presentation here that I think I can very nicely summarize all those key points. Dr. Alan, should I go in to jump into that now? Go for it, Michael. All right, here we go. All right, so again, once again, thank you, Dr. Stu, for having us here participate with you today, and discussing some of the important elements for why reviews are so key to your business and to your digital success, so let's just jump right on into it, and we start with this first slide as to why bad reviews matter and why we need to be thinking about this so, so much for our businesses, because as you see here, 86%, almost 90%, of the people are not purchasing if they see things that aren't chiming with their likes and they're feeling the happy happys of why they should be picking up the phone or filling that online inquiry form out, so it's a proven statistic, and I'll just tell you a quick little story along this, because I think it's important. These personal things can really be very, very impactful, and this is where my wife was just looking for a new phone cover for her cell phone that just broke. Cell phones are like, more like computers now, very, very expensive, so she was literally on the computer for two hours, and I asked her, "Honey, what are you doing?" And what she was doing was reading online reviews for about a $30 item. Okay? Two hours, she's a high-end programmer, website developer, but that's how important her time was to put towards making sure she got the right product, reading reviews. I thought that was kind of a poignant story, but here are some very key best practices, publications, and sources out on the internet, that we always like to go look at and see what they're seeing that I want to put here on the screen, because this is what we need to be paying attention to is best practices, what should we be thinking about for our businesses as part of the business community, and what the businesses and of the like are looking for. So as you see here, 67 to 90% of the consumers look at product reviews, so we're going to get into a little bit more of those details later and why that's so important, but I already just alluded to that with my own personal experience and how that is happening, and it happens every single day in every single moment, and I'm going to show you some of the effects of that and how that plays out in a minute. But as you can see here, the next one, turn a negative

4 review into a positive review. Well, that was what Dr. Stu was just kind of alluding to, that we're going to be talking about today, that is so, so important, because it's an opportunity. I know we get all up in arms sometimes when, "Oh, my gosh, I got a bad review. I need to figure something out." Well, yes, you should be paying attention, and you should be looking at that as how I can figure something out to turn it into a positive, and we're going to talk about that today, so this is a nice little slide I want to throw up to everybody, because we have evolved so quickly. I mean, people don't realize that Google just came here 16 years ago. In 16 years, we started to where we were using cryptic ways of how we communicated to one another and finding information through, on a first Web 1.0 level, where now, folks, we're into the 3.0 level, which is to where people are much more capable and have a much more understanding of how they can get what they want out of the internet, and if you're not poised and positioned for that, then you're not going to get what you're looking to get out of the internet, very important point there. So, here's where we get into what we're going to be really delving into today, which is reputation management, or, as I also have referred to it, or you'll see it too, is your online reputation management, and here are some very important statistics that came from polled consumers, 2,000 of them. And so, I'm going to go to some [dealer studies 00:08:15] which are very important. Okay? 70%, almost 70%, trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. That is humungo, folks, because as we all know, when you're out there and you're asking for somebody to give you their recommendation, it's usually a friend, it's usually somebody you know, and you usually take that word as gold, so that is what you need to take away from that point. But listen to this one. 80%, or almost 80%, of people that are 16 and 34, either way, that's the millennials, folks, that's the millennials, will take these reviews very, very importantly, and we have to be paying attention to that audience now. It's an important audience. They're very digitally inclined. They have the most access to knowledge than ever before, in any other generation, okay? So with that, we have to be paying attention to that generation, to how they do business, so another point there to that. Even our seniors, 55+, are starting to utilize the importance of reading a review. And no, they're not going to be as savvy as that millennial, but if they see something that says, "Hey, what a fantastic company this is, or practice, and they really know how to take care of their patients," more than likely, that's going to be enough engagement for that kind of individual. Here's another one I thought was really powerful. The more reviews a business has, the more trust a consumer will place in reputation management. This is plain and simple, because I've done it myself, I know you probably all have too, is, you go and you look to see who's got the most reviews, and you mainly go to them to see what do they got to say.

5 It's almost like the hook that draws you in to see, "Well, let me just see what these guys are all about." And, again, it's just because you've got the most, and that's what drew that person in. Very, very powerful. Michael Luevano: Dr. Collins: Michael Luevano: And Michael, I can attest to these numbers. First of all, I wouldn't have expected them to be as powerful as that, but who hasn't gone onto Amazon and looked at a product and then checked out all of the reviews? I think anyone can relate to that, and when it comes to your own practice, I think that this is something that people have to understand. 10 years ago, probably half the people that have websites now didn't even have a website, let alone an online presence, so this is very timely information, because I think that the doctors really need to understand the changing times. When I started out in practice, 1981, 1982, I was happy to get a big Yellow Pages ad. Does anyone even know what the Yellow Pages is any longer? It's a whole different world, but Yellow Pages, back then, it was about size of the ad and how much you spent to determine if you were worthy. Now, it's really about reviews, and it's a much better way to go, and I think that those statistics are pretty eye-opening. Yes, they are. Yes, they are, Dr. Stu. Appreciate that little bit of a reverb on that. That would be where you start getting into doing Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. Those are such a public forum, now you have to be very careful, because anyone who has an ax to grind can certainly start to do things to you, and I've had doctors in the past essentially blackmailed with types of reviews that you have to be very careful of. Then, of course, we have the whole HIPAA thing. So there's nothing wrong with, I think, having a social media footprint, but doctors have to be much more careful, because unlike someone reviewing a cover for a cell phone, this is now something where it's a healthcare-related field where there could be some very private information that a doctor could potentially lose his license over information that he posts online, and therefore we want to be very careful with that. So this is some important things that I'm going to discuss here, and we're going to begin more into it, but it says here, as Dr. Stu has even pointed out, [so it's not 00:12:21] going to beat a dead horse, but it's all about being validated. It's about having credibility, and this is part of the key to that engagement process. This is what I always continuously try and preach to my customers and try and educate them about, is that places like social media is what that really is, folks, is it's a place to build your credibility. It's a validation platform web property. That's where people are going to go and go, "I like what I'm reading here as part of what they're putting out. They really understand their industry, because their newsfeed really is engaging, or because there's customers on here that is engaging and saying what a great practice this is." That kind of credibility is why you need to be paying attention to your reviews. And it says, "Given the importance of a clean and popular online image, it follows that companies are investing in significant resources."

6 Well, that's, again, one of the reasons why we've put such an onus and emphasis to this side of internet marketing, because it does have to be paid attention to. It has to be invested into. It has to be continuously monitored. It isn't something that you just do today and forget about it tomorrow, so to that point, we go to... Michael Luevano: Michael Luevano: And, Michael, I just want to add one other thing before you get onto the negative reviews, which everyone's waiting for. Yeah. I've recently had an opportunity to interview some people for a higher-level marketing position, and they all come with the ability to do and create and maintain websites. Well, one of them, first thing you do is look up their websites, and you can see the difference between such basic kindergartenlooking now websites versus sophisticated, forward-moving, empowering websites. And the doctors sometimes, I get to talk to them, and they ask me about some of these things, and they're doing it themselves, which is fine, I don't have a problem with that, you just don't want it to look like a ma and pa slapped-together website, as opposed to something that's dynamic and inviting and in today's environment, so I just wanted to add that in there. Yes, that's... Thank you, thank you. Well, here we are, as Dr. Stu was saying, negative reviews. "Before taking up in arms, consider these threshold questions," it says here. So this says it's a natural reactive impulse, impulse to react to when we get something that's negative that's basically put out there about our business, okay? But what we need to be understanding and be aware of is, it isn't something that, "Oh, we need to start calling our lawyers. Oh, we need to start getting people that are high-level consultants and spend a million dollars to figure this out." That is not what you should probably be doing on a first-level basis, folks. Okay? So I'm going to get into what you need to be doing later, but let's get into some more of the more questions that come up before you start getting panicked or thinking you need to run out to the courthouse or something. Fact or opinion? Is the review based on factual allegations, or does it merely state opinion? Okay? So this is a very, very important point that we all need to make sure that we look at, because a lot of times, somebody's putting out an opinion, and an opinion can be talked about. You can go back and you can discuss that opinion, and this is where we get into this point that Dr. Stu was alluding to earlier, that if you get into something that comes out there on a review that maybe looks a little bit like maybe a HIPAA violation, or it could be an issue for you, this is where you can actually interact with that reviewer. Dr. Collins: "We have a differing opinion, and we'd love to discuss with that you offline," kind of sets a tone if someone's reading it, but I had someone recently that essentially got into some verbal issues with a patient over payment of a claim.

7 Michael Luevano: And you can do it a public response, or, in a case like Yelp, you can do a private response to the opinion, and you can change that opinion, because, again, it's an opinion. It's not fact. They're not trying to actually defame you, as a lot of people might originally think, because you just got this review, but as you start to digest and you look at the content and you see what's really being said about you, you might, in most cases, find, "Hey, this is something that I can discuss or negotiate or even have the customer completely remove." We see it happen all the time, because it's what customers are really looking for, believe it or not, from putting these negative reviews. They're not looking to tear down your businesses, folks. They're not looking to destroy you. They're looking to see if you really have the aptitude to understand that there's a need here, that there's somebody here that has something that they want somebody to discuss with them and, more than likely, try and help resolve. Okay? So we need to be thinking about that. And helpful, [thanks 00:17:34]. Michael Luevano: And one of the things about that that I want to, at some point, when we bring Sam on, I want to discuss with Sam the responses like you're talking about. One of the things that is different in the chiropractic world with these online reviews is that some of the people that put these on are specifically doing it to harm the business, and when they are, the approach taken needs to be very cautious, because, again, it's not just the potential for HIPAA violations, but you don't want this to wind up as a licensing board issue as well. It can escalate, and depending on how much or how little you actually respond, can make a world of difference, so I want to share that through you, Michael, but I also want to come back to that with Sam as well. Excellent, excellent. Perfect. Thank you, Dr. Stu. So as we get into this last point here about if we're taking up in arms, we were just talking about that in the last slide. These reviews are really opportunities for growth, in that case of where you can turn the negative into a positive, and in some cases and points here, there even might be areas of the business operationally or from a pointed service, of how the company or the practice is providing a service, it could be something that could be improved upon. I mean, it could be just the timeliness of them waiting in the waiting room to where you change your operations to where now people are getting a better experience from that standpoint, so there's a lot of different angles, folks, that you could be looking at how this could be an improvement overall for how you do business. And now we get into, keep these options in mind as you start to think about operationally how you're going to be doing strategies to circumvent any kind of bad reviews that are coming your way, or deal with them as they do come, so here is where we talk about that, what we just discussed a little bit ago, directly respond to the consumer. You can directly respond on the backend of most search engines, whether it's Google, Yelp. There's lots of places to write reviews now, so please, try and go right to the source directly, and if that doesn't work, then what you probably will have to do is put a public response. Because here's the reason why that's important, folks, is that if you've got somebody out there

8 that said something damning or is not replying to you, you're not communicating back, they're like, "Done. Okay. This is my point. I'm not going to talk to this business anymore," then it's important to publicly say, "Hey, this is our [opinion to 00:20:30] the situation." Where there's nothing ill or anything we tried to create in what was a negative manner, and really [putting it as 00:20:38] this that you're not trying to make excuses, because I know that that's not going to be something that you would want to do for yourself, so simply state that, "Hey, you wanted to try and resolve the situation. This is not the way things are," and try and keep things very clear and concise. Don't get wordy with your response publicly, but keep it very professional, very top-shelf, to where people can see, "Hey, these people do care about this customer, and I can see that it could have been an isolated incident." So that's, I think, the way you need to be thinking about how they approach that. Here we go. Appeal to the online platform. Okay, so let's just talk about this one for a second. I'm sorry about the wording on the bottom, it kind of got jumbled there. But it is unlikely that any online review site will take a review down simply because the company doesn't like the negative feedback, so I'm going to talk about this for a second, because there's actually, because there's lots of places to write reviews now, folks. There's a place called Ripoff Report. I don't know if you ever heard about it. It exists. It's a place to write reviews, so if you were to try and get that removed, I've heard customers paying upwards of $5,000 for them to remove those reviews, so again, there could be other ways that you could go about trying to get a negative review dealt with instead of going and spending a million dollars with a lawyer or with the online platform itself. Okay? So it's just really important to take that approach, and when you're trying to deal with that, in consideration. Any feedback or comments on that, Dr. Stu? Michael Luevano: Well, I think this is an important part, because everybody asks, "How do I get these removed from the platform?" And that, quite frankly, was one of my questions for you. Is that something that's easy to do? Obviously, it's not, but negative, and I do know that people have gotten these reviews removed at different times because they were able to demonstrate to that site that it was false information, and if it's false information, they're a little bit more open, but not always. Correct. So I think that the takeaway is, don't assume that this is the road to take. The road to take may be a simple, and I know, again, we'll get into this with Sam in more depth too, but a simple response, and so one of the things, as I have put out to some of the doctors, is people say, "Well, that doctor, they were terrible, they were this, they were that." Well, that's great, and something that I have initiated is, "I'm sorry that you felt the need to share that experience. We didn't see it the same way and would be more than happy to discuss this with you offline."

9 People that read that, I think, respect that they're not getting into all of the crap about what someone is putting out there, acknowledging that it may or may not be accurate, and are open to feedback, but let's do it in a civil way. At least from a professional. So these are some of the things that I think may be a little bit better than thinking about, "How am I going to get this site to remove this?" I'm not saying not to try it, but I wouldn't hold your breath. Michael Luevano: Exactly, exactly. Yes, very well put. I mean, it really does come down to you having something that's in violation, as it says here on this little snippet, of the site's terms of use to where they might remove it at that point, but most sites will not remove reviews. All right, so we move along here, so basically, we get to the final thoughts, a successful digital reputation, so, "When faced with a negative review, businesses have various options for responding." Well, here it says, "As a general practice, it may be helpful to create an online reputation management policy to allow your company to respond to negative reviews." Well, absolutely, you need to have something internal. You have to develop something today. Don't wait. This is that important for your practice, to have something internally of how you're managing your online reputation, because what's some of the things that it's going to do for you? These are some of the benefits. It's going to help increase sales, okay, [look at it 00:25:10] want more sales. That's bottom line, so that's why it's number one. It's going to build trust and credibility for your practice, because we discussed, it's going to put out different places on different web properties of what a great practice you are and how you take so much pride in your services. Okay? Show your best side. Always show your best side digitally when you can. Very, very important to be able to demonstrate that you have a very, very good online reputation. One other thing is online insights. I mean, if you have the online insight to people, as I was saying, to say, "Hey, wow, these guys have tons of reviews! I'm going to call them," I mean, it's just, it's almost because no-brainers for these practices in their respective markets to be getting the lion's share of the business, because it can only take seconds to collapse a brand that took you years to build. Very, very important takeaway there. Michael Luevano: And I think another takeaway I don't want people to miss is that it's always been a good idea to gather testimonials from your patients. This is your testimonial board, and it's imperative that you get your patients that are happy with you, happy with your office, and happy with your service, to be willing to go on these sites and add their review in a positive way for you, because positive reviews certainly add to the weight that you're talking about, in terms of abundance, but they also outweigh any of the negative reviews that may exist, because anyone that's objective can look online and know that everyone's going to have a bad review from somebody. Yeah, yeah.

10 Michael Luevano: Michael Luevano: It's about putting it in perspective, when you have one person that's obviously off the wall compared to all of these positive reviews that are more detailed and more succinct, I think that it's worth the effort to have your patients engaged. Yeah. Absolutely, and the last point to these five takeaways is the recruitment. Having a professional staff is a foundation for your business, and these people are most likely, they're going to research your company and look at all the facts concerning the brand and whether or not they're going to want to accept a position in your company, so it can make a big difference in hiring people, with a good reputation for your business, so that was another last little point I want to leave you all with, but basically, that pretty much concludes what we wanted to discuss, because an online reputation is not a simple buzzword, folks. It's really, it's a reality, and if you're not serious about protecting your online reputation, your business could have challenges, so we look forward to supporting anyone that has any more questions on this down the line, but that's what we had to present and we want to turn it back over here to Dr. Alan or Sam. I'll take it from here, Michael, and thanks. Okay. Okay, Dr. Stu. That was, I think, really informative, and I want to bring on Sam. Sam has been on a number of our shows. You all know I consider Sam not only an expert in all of the things he does, I really have gained a lot of respect for Sam's network, I refer a ton of you now, whenever I have an opportunity, to his network, A, it's too cheap, and you get too much value for what you're going to pay, but I also consider Sam a good friend. This guy has tons of integrity, he knows how to get the message across, and he's here to help and protect all of the doctors, and he does it for the right reasons, so it's... It's a valiant effort to get Sam to participate with us, because he's so busy, but he's always so accommodating, so welcome, Sam. I know you've had experience of people asking you, "How do I resolve these issues?" And I know that because I've called you to ask you, "How do you recommend we deal with this on a doctor's behalf," before, so any insight about that that you want to start with? Dr. Collins: Dr. Collins: Absolutely. I'm not sure if I'm up. Yes. Okay, we're up. Okay, great, thanks. Well, thanks for having me, and Stu, as you were going on about my expertise, I was like, "Well, you know what I've done over time, Stu, is gained a lot of respect for you and I think a good friendship," so that part, I appreciate, and the mutual respect. That being said, my issue here that I think I want to probably bring that's maybe slightly different is, first, you have to look at what is your attempt with the social media? So I would say, first of all, you want to be very careful of social media, but I would say having a very

11 good website, because for the most part, a person may look for you, they're just going to look at your website. Is there a nice picture of you, or is there a little history of where you went to school, what your practice philosophies are? And that's often what they're looking for, because, I'll be very honest, I'm never going to pick a doctor based on a Yelp review, simply because I pick a doctor based on a friend that referred me. Now, I'm not going to say I won't look, but that's not going to make as big a difference, but I think we do have to have a social footprint, if you will, or a media footprint with online access. And so, I'd say, first, what are you looking to gain or what are we looking to do with having the type of website... Well, one, does it look professional, as you pointed out? Does it give the patients what they're looking for? What is your technique, what is your philosophy, how long have you been in practice? And then, of course, if you can have some testimonials of patients, but I wouldn't really have it accessed where people could then simply comment on it. That would be where you start getting into doing Twitter, and Facebook, and Instagram. Those are such a public forum, now you have to be very careful, because anyone who has an ax to grind can certainly start to do things to you, and I've had doctors in the past essentially blackmailed with types of reviews that you have to be very careful of. Then, of course, we have the whole HIPAA thing. So there's nothing wrong with, I think, having a social media footprint, but doctors have to be much more careful, because unlike someone reviewing a cover for a cellphone, this is now something where it's a healthcare-related field where there could be some very private information that a doctor could potentially lose his license over information that he posts online, and therefore, we want to be very careful with that. I totally agree with you, Sam, all the way through, and my experience in talking to the doctors and seeing what is being put out there, website, we can all agree it's important to maintain a good website. However, in the age of social media, people are going to have Facebook interaction, as well as these other medias. And one of the things that I have addressed, in terms of like Facebook, is that you should have a separate Facebook page for your business, rather than a Facebook page that is your personal page, that you are now engaging your patients, along with the party you went out drinking and have pictures all over Facebook, or your family outing at the lake, or all of these things. People like to mix the business and the pleasure, and sometimes they ought not be mixed, and that can get people into a challenge as well. Dr. Collins: Oh, I agree. In fact, here's what I would say, as a general rule, I agree that you should have a Facebook profile for your business, but I would also leave it one that's kind of closed, that's moreso where people can look and then you can post updates and newsletters and it's more informational than necessarily interactive, so you can be found, not to say someone couldn't post. And when you have your personal Facebook account, I will implore doctors, "Do not use

12 your name on your Facebook account." It needs to be a pseudonym that only the friends that you want to find you can find you, because you don't, as you said, want to have pictures of you with your friends out having a good time, which is nothing wrong with that, but that doesn't portray the professionalism that you're looking for. And so, I would hope that I can't find you. Like, for instance, someone that wants to look for me is not going to find me on Facebook, though I have an account, because I want to make sure to keep my professional and business life separate from my personal life, and not allow someone to go, "Oh, look at what's going on," so that would be the first. The second is when you create these, realize that any post that happens there is not private. Nothing is private on these platforms whatsoever. Sam, that was why we have you. That was a home run and something I had never heard before, and I think I've heard a lot. When you said, "Do not use your name and attach it to your business," that's terrific. I hope everyone got that point, because that is the separation between your personal and your business, and I think that is awesome, but let's shift gears for a minute. Let's get off of the Facebook thing for a little bit, and even the websites. There is still Yelp, Google, and all of these other places that people are putting on reviews, hopefully good ones, but once in a while, they're not quite so good, and you alluded to the fact, and I know exactly what you're talking about, we consider some of these comments, whether it be verbal or on a text or an or online, to be a form of blackmail, and I... Can you give an example of anything negative that you've seen or come across that we've been able to help somebody...? What, you don't always get rid of it, right? We can agree to that, but instead of having it as a total negative, I want to at least neutralize what is out there, and you have helped us with that before. Any comments you want to make on that? Dr. Collins: Sure, I think one thing that you said is, if you want to refer to it as a home run, is when you said to respond and say, "We have a differing opinion, and we'd love to discuss that with you offline," kind of sets a tone if someone's reading it, but I had someone recently that essentially got into some verbal issues with a patient over payment of a claim. Patient didn't want to pay, wanted a discount. "If you don't discount it, I'm going to make a bad complaint," and I essentially told the doctors that they're holding you... They're blackmailing you. Now, of course, the easy course is to say, "Okay, well, I'm going to let them have a discount," but I said, "Here's the... If they make a bad review, so be it." Am I going to go on there and respond? My review would say, "You know what? Consider the source and understand, first of all, they're going to have to be motivated." My concern is, many people who make these large complaints on Yelp and any platform, I concern myself going, what's going on in their life that they have that much time to spend... There's always a little something crazy going, so what I would suggest to do is, you want to promote positive reviews in your office, and so what I told this

13 doctor to do, and what he was able to do because the patient did want to make a bad complaint, I said, "You see 30 people a day who love you, which means you've got 150 visits a week of people coming to this office who absolutely adore you. Ask patients, say, 'Hey, if you don't mind, would you mind making a comment on Yelp for me, to give a positive review?'" And most people are happy to do it. When I like something and the person asks me to, I will, and all of a sudden, before you know it, that person did make a review, but now it's buried 10 pages deep, and most people aren't going to even search that far. They're going to look through a few, particularly when it comes to a doctor, so we're just trying to set a tone where doctors want to be careful when patients use that. And I won't say that's common, but that's one of the ones that concerns me, is that whenever you get into that issue, when a patient's making an issue with you, do try to do some things to control it in the office, to say, "Okay, well, how can we resolve it?" Instead of leading to these altercations where you go online, now the doctor's tempted, because he's so mad, to respond. And I always tell everyone, "Take a breath, relax, read it, think about it," because if you respond quickly, of course, as we all would, we're going to be a little hot-headed, and we're going to put ourselves in jeopardy, because the person who has the biggest risk is us, not that patient. Absolutely, and that's a great point, in that, don't ever respond from an emotional point of view, because that will never get you anywhere in a productive way. So when we do respond, I think it is important to let everyone know that a response is necessary, but never get into the specifics of what they put out there. Always keep it light and inviting. As you said, mainly setting the tone of how you interact as the professional, rather than the person making the complaint, but something that Michael said earlier on in the show that I thought was really a good lead-in, we could learn from some of these reviews. Not all of them are, "Got you," bad reviews, like we're talking about. Some of them may be, "Hey, I went to that doctor's office, and man, it was not clean," or, "I went to the doctor's office, he didn't really listen to me well," where I think that should be a wake-up call, have a team meeting with your staff, and say, "Hey, what do we do so that no one ever thinks that of this office again," and use the review as a productive mechanism, and still respond. "Thank you for bringing that to my attention. I'm sorry you felt that way. As a result of what you said, we've already done a thorough housecleaning," or, "I'm sorry you felt that way, that I wasn't listening to you. I certainly was. I'd love to have a followup conversation with you. Let's set it up," or something to that effect, just to demonstrate that you're hearing that person, first and foremost. But also, it may be things that you really should be told that people aren't telling you to your face, like, "When the heck are you going to clean this carpet? It's been 15 years I've been coming here and I see my footprints from 14 years ago," and we can laugh about it, but at the same time, I know examples that it would

14 be true. So we can learn from some of our own patients wanting to share, but maybe it's not always a positive approach, right? Dr. Collins: Right, exactly. I'd say it's being constructive. I do 75 seminars a year, and one of the things we always do is we have a comment sheet at the end. Part of that is a board requirement, but part of it is, I read every single one, and if I see someone that just seems off the rails, that's one thing, but if you see something that, "Oh, that question wasn't thoroughly," or, "He seemed to not listen well," that's something I take and go, "Ooh, how can I be better?" So there's a constructiveness to it that I think we can take away. It's just being careful of getting into a verbal battle of some type, and you want to deescalate and look and go, "Oh, that is something I could be better." What if a person had to wait a very long time? Talk with your staff about, "How do we get them in more efficiently? What, are we scheduling too soon?" But there is a positive aspect to that. What I'm concerned with, and I think what I want people to realize, is that when you get a negative review, when it's one that's really, feel damaging to your practice, you've got to slow down, respond as I think you have stated and try to work with the patient, and then simply get it, for the most part, buried. I've been to restaurants where they've been fantastic, but you read some of the reviews and I'm going, "Boy, it seems like a whole different place." Every day, there's something different, and it's why it's a chiropractic practice, not a perfect. You're going to be everything you can get better, and I hope each day, as all of us, we try to be better at what we do, we want to make sure we're giving the best possible service, because ultimately, we are a customer service business, and those responses are positive. It's just when a person has gone obviously too far, but most often, a person just wants to be heard. So if you... Dr. Collins: Yeah.... approach it to go back and show that you're listening, even without commenting directly, that, often, can deescalate it. And I think that's what Michael was referring to in taking a bad review and making it a positive, and I think that that was, good point. So let's talk about testimonials. Let's go back to that a little bit, but let's talk about them on the website, because I said that I think it's very important that we ask our patients, and so did you, to offer up a nice comment, whether it be on one of the reviews or on the website. But when they put it on our website, like I used to get paper, handwritten testimonials, then you could imagine someone writing something, and I had a whole book in our office, so people, as they're waiting for me, could go through it. In fact, as an office procedure, when a new patient came in, once they completed their entrance paperwork, they were handed that book to look through. I wanted them to think I was great before they ever got to see me, but times have changed.

15 Dr. Collins: [Exactly 00:43:26]. We now do these things on our website and all of that, and even then, I used to take some of their testimonials and ask them, "Can I use it in an ad that I was going to put out," or in a commercial or whatever we were doing. But what we had to do was get their permission, and we needed it in writing. The same thing holds true, doesn't it, when we're dealing with on-site testimonials? Dr. Collins: We want to make sure, so that we don't get in trouble at some point, right? Well, exactly right. If someone is posting something on Yelp, we don't have to get permission, because they are simply doing it under their own volition, but as soon as we put it on our site, whether it's a Facebook or our site, you definitely want to make sure the patient has permission to make sure they're understanding what they're doing, so you want to have them sign a basic, simple release that says you're going to use their image, their words, and you want to be careful, often, you don't want to get too detailed on what they were there for, saying, "I had a 60 degree scoliosis," and... You want to just say, "Hey, when I came in, it was very positive, it was helpful." I will tell what a lot of people might want to do, what we do in our seminars, now, is we will take people that, after the seminar, if they really liked it, and then we use it as part of our promotion to hear someone's own words, but again, we make sure we have permission for them to say they were here. With a patient, you want to be more careful. If someone doesn't want to do it, that's fine, don't make it an issue. Just have them sign. Most people will be happy to, just make sure they understand once this is up, this is completely public. They've got to be aware that anyone can find that, and it's going to be there forever, which, for most of us, it's not a bad thing. If I have a doctor I like, and I'm happy with him, I'd have no problem with that, and I think you're going to find a number of people that will... Our end is the HIPAA end. We don't want someone to come back and say, "I did not give you permission to do this." You're going to have the release, so... Dr. Collins: Exactly.... we want to be careful. Things that doctors often will post, they will post pictures from their office. Believe it or not, you want to make sure there's no files in the background, because someone could zoom in and see a person's name. You want to make sure that if you have anything you're posting on social media, from a picture in the office from an office party, you want to make sure those things are off, but again, so long as their permission... And I point out, most people are happy... In my dad's office, we used to have a birthday board, and when someone's birthday came up, their name would be up on the board, and my dad always asked people, "If you don't want it up... " There wasn't a person who didn't want their name up, or, in fact, were upset, "How come my name's not here?"

16 Because there's a little sense of that community, and I think that's something you build is that community where there's that interaction, so have them sign a release, whether you're going to have them, something in writing, but of course, online, once they sign their release, you're going to be completely clear of HIPAA. Just be careful of overdoing information. Always think of the least possible information. You don't have to be specific that they came in for sciatica and had a pars defect or something. It just, they had low back pain. "I came in to the doctor. After four weeks of care, he resolved it, I was back to work." Those are all great things, and people love to hear that. Dr. Collins: Absolutely, and it will help build your practice. But you started going into, "Don't get into too much detail," although we may have a little differing thought on it, and that's okay, but what about when people make a claim, whether it be in a testimonial, or on a review, or on Facebook, says, "Man, I had cancer. I went in to Dr. So-and-so, and I'm cured." We all know that the cured part is problematic, and how do we address that? Well, the thing I would be careful of is first, when you see that, you want to make sure that you, one, before you start commenting, if that were on a social media page, you don't want to comment, but if it were, say, something that you put up as a testimonial, then you immediately want to make sure to probably take it down, because that's gone too far, but if let's say it's on a social media, the person says I cured cancer, I would likely make a post to it to say, "Hey, please call me privately," or, "We can discuss privately," but that, "This office makes no claims or conditions that chiropractic care can cure cancer." In other words, taking away your liability, because clearly, in a situation like that, as we both know, being chiropractors for years, there is a certain level of the medical profession that will take great offense and may come after you for those reasons, so you want to be very careful to go and say, "Hey, you know what? This patient was helped and we're glad for that, but we make no claims of any type of cure or other thing." And, again, I don't think we'll see it too much, but many times, people are so excited what a chiropractor can do that they do feel cured, because they finally feel better and they can move, now that... The cancer's probably still there, unfortunately, but again, their effects of it are probably greatly improved through what we can do for them. But, again, being careful of, "Oh, I was cured of my diabetes," that's when I'd start to be very, very conscientious of them, make sure the patient knows, "Okay, that may a step... " I'd actually ask them, probably, to delete it and change it once we discuss with them about it, just to make sure we're not putting ourselves in any legal problem where, ultimately, we have to come and have someone defend us in court through some class action or otherwise. Yeah. One of the things that you just said was important, as a takeaway for people, that these are magnets. There are people that are looking to find something on you, especially the more successful they think you are, they're looking for something, and it doesn't have to be your patients, it could be

17 another chiropractor that has an ax to grind, it could be a medical doctor, it could be anybody. And it is so simple, in this day and age, to go on Google and find a licensing board and make a complaint. It's not worth it. And so I like the approach that you said, in terms of, if you see somebody that posts something that says, "Dr. Hoffman cured me of blah, blah, blah," to post back on there, "Thank you for the acknowledgment, Mary. I just want to remind you that we simply found vertebral subluxation," or whatever, "and removed the interference. We're so glad, though, that your body responded in a positive way, as so many do, but remember, we don't cure anything, and we never even treated, specifically, that illness. Please, let's discuss this offline." I think it is important to separate yourself, I think it's critical, more than important, to separate yourself from allowing, because saying nothing is an acknowledgment that you approve of that word being listed in there. And in most states, you can't even treat a disease, a named disease. In a couple of states you can, but if you can't treat it, no one should be saying that you cured them of that. Otherwise, everyone thinks that you're a diabetes doctor, and that just doesn't fly. So do you think that having maybe a general disclaimer on your page to almost acknowledge the possibility of someone putting something up there would maybe cover it all? Saying, "Hey, we don't treat any specific diseases. Some of our patients have received results and feel like they've been cured. However, boom, boom, boom." Dr. Collins: Well, I think it's a good idea. I don't see any harm in it. I've been around enough attorneys, with my son being one, to know they'll say, "Of course you should have that," but in turn, I would still address that, something that specific very specifically, a general disclaimer about chiropractic care, "What we do, removal of subluxation," and for the most part, I would try to just steer the patient to say, "Just talk about how great you felt as a result of care," more than stating, "There is a cure," and... Because, for the most part, they're just so happy, they're trying to share the joy. Just get them to share it in the way that, of course, it makes sense. And remember, if I put on a bad review, if it's my review, can I go back and make changes to it? To my knowledge, I think there's going to be some aspect to that, and so, certainly, that gives a chance to, when a patient's gone maybe a little too far, we can certainly say, "Let's work with that," but of course, giving ourselves that level of protection for someone else, because remember, once it's posted, how many times have we seen a Twitter post deleted, but yet, it's already on a million places? And just to bring this home, I want to remind the doctors that with all of the things that we're talking about, it's to actually encourage you to get more and more of these testimonials. We want you to build your practice. We don't want you to be coming from a state of fear. We want you to come from a state of awareness of what you need to do to build your business, but safeguard it, not just the business, but your name as well, and that's why we talked about reputation management throughout this show. And so, Sam, you never

18 disappoint. I really appreciate you participating.michael, that was terrific information. I think that our doctors that have come to show up on our live shows... You know, I go to Florida and I see somebody that I haven't seen in three or four year and they say, "Oh, man, I love your shows," or, "I've been on the last show and what about this, what about that," and how rewarding it is. The rewarding part is the people that we've had on our shows that have been able to help education and help our doctors be more and more successful since that's what it's all about. I want to thank you, Sam, as always. I want to also, in terms of Sam Collins, mention again the HJ Ross Network. He does a terrific job. Any questions you have on compliance, billing, coding, HIPAA, he is the man. Go onto HJRossCompany.com. Find out what he has available to work with him because I refer a ton of people over there. One of the things that they have that you all should have is an electronic HIPAA program that's been all done for you. I see people charging $1000 to $2000 for a HIPAA compliance program. This one takes 10 minutes to get your whole program set up, online. It costs $9.99 a month, and you're always given any update that's available so that you are always in compliance. Don't miss our on doing any of these things. Go to Sam. See what he can do to help you. Michael, you were terrific. Everybody, thanks for being with us, again, for another ChiroSecure live event. Speaker 2: Absolutely. Make it an asset. It's not a liability. It's an asset. For the rest of you, don't forget to download our app. Go to either Google Play or to the App Store on your iphone and get our app so that you could be updated with all of our risk management tips, our live shows, and everything else that we do. Like us on Facebook. We appreciate all of you being with us.

19 Why Bad Reviews Matter for Digital Success

20 Why Bad Reviews Matter Less is more, Don t overload your customers

21 Why Bad Reviews Matter Business.com: 67 percent and 90 percent of consumers look at a product s reviews before they decide to make a purchase. It might seem, therefore, like any bad reviews would immediately affect your sales in a negative way. After all, having a negative review shows that your company isn t perfect, right? Outboundengine.com: You can turn a negative review into a positive review. With the trust that your potential customers place in online sources, negative reviews have the potential to substantially impact your business. Reviews are influencing the opinions of potential customers, but they don t have to be a permanent black mark on your digital record. Why your digital reputation matters

22 Why Bad Reviews Matter The Evolution of internet marketing