Are Consumer Reviews of Doctors Useful?

As I occasionally like to do in this blog, I'll let someone else do the talking... The following email was sent to me and is reprinted here with permission, thanks for the nice note Glenn!

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Hey,

Just a quick note to let you know how useful Yelp was for finding, of all things, an OB.

 My wife is an oncology fellow, and many of our friends are doctors. But she still used Yelp – exclusively -- to choose an obstetrician because you need to find one without being able to ask around (most people don’t announce their pregnancies until the second trimester because of miscarriage risk). And the OB we found via Yelp was awesome.

Anyway, if you ever get weary of Yelpers’ endless quest for the perfect pulled-pork sandwich – and you shouldn’t, I mean please, don’t, *ever* – you should know that the way you guys have branched out into other fields means you just have a bigger and deeper impact on people’s lives all the time.

Which you already know. Anyway, I don’t even know why I’m sending you this note – you’ll just give me a hard time about not putting Yelp reviews on a listing page that is already a bit bloated – but I’ve been meaning to say thanks.

Hope all is well with you. You’ve guys have handled yourselves really well lately, by the way.

Regards,

Glenn Kelman | CEO, Redfin