Frequently Asked Questions

We integrate with the leading practice management systems. Check out our integrations page to see some examples. If your practice management system isn’t on the list, we’ll add it! Speak to a rater8 solutions consultant to get started.

Yes! We offer a 30-day free trial. We’re confident you’ll love our software, and we want you to try it out, risk-free. No upfront payment is required. You only pay if you decide to move forward with our platform.

rater8 makes the setup EASY. Our team of implementation consultants will get your practice up and running with rater8 in days. Our clients repeatedly say that our implementation requires little to no time on their end, and that rater8 was the easiest IT project they’ve launched. We strive to make the process pain-free and seamless for all.

Check out our Testimonials page.

Courtney from La Pine Community Health Center: “The implementation was very easy; it took about 2-3 hours spread out over a week or so.”

Robin from Lancaster Orthopedics: “The implementation was very easy. It didn’t even take an hour of time.”

Ashley from Sonoran Spine: “The team at rater8 had our practice up and running smoothly in a very timely manner. It required minimal time on my end to produce the necessary material. This group is efficient, helpful, and best of all…the survey is productive in getting responses from our patients.”

Within rater8, there are two patient workflows: Review Builder Mode and Survey Mode. Review Builder Mode maximizes the number of online reviews created,  redirecting patients to popular review sites such as Google, Healthgrades, Vitals, and WebMD. Survey Mode collects internal feedback from patients before redirecting them to popular review sites. You can use either mode or a combination of both.

rater8 targets Google, Healthgrades, Vitals, Facebook, and more. The preferred review platform can be set practice-wide and customized for individual doctors. 

rater8 also builds online reviews in parallel. For example, administrators can choose to send 50% to Google, 30% to Healthgrades, and 20% to Vitals. These percentages are easily configurable.

rater8 takes privacy and data security seriously. When your practice management system sends us an HL7 file containing the patient’s appointment information, we process it and only store in our database – in encrypted format – the patient’s name, email address, and (optionally) mobile number. Other than these demographic fields, we neither receive from your practice management system, nor store in our database, patient-related medical information like diagnoses, prescriptions, past procedures, etc.

Once we process the HL7 files, we encrypt and archive them on our server.

In addition, rater8 does not share or sell patient names, email addresses, or phone numbers with any third parties.

Yes – a patient can unsubscribe from email or text messages at any time.

Using a real-time interface with your practice management system, we send our RateMe email the moment the patient leaves your office. By the time they get to their car in the parking lot, they already have the email on their mobile device. The time delay between checkout and receiving an email can be set in the software.

Administrators also configure the time between messages. For example, a practice may want to limit sending surveys to a patient no more than once every 90 days.

Absolutely! We have a team of Google My Business consultants that are dedicated to helping you create, claim, and optimize your listings. We know this process can be tedious and time-consuming. Rather than simply give you the tools to do it yourself, we’ll take on this work. If you prefer to manage this yourself, we have an abundance of literature and resources to help you along the way.

Review gating is soliciting feedback from a patient and then deciding whether to ask them to post their feedback on a public review site based on their response. This is strictly against Google’s review guidelines and comes with heavy penalties. Google review solicitation explicitly states: “Don’t discourage or prohibit negative reviews or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers.” Unlike other reputation management vendors, rater8 does not review gate. We believe it is important to follow Google guidelines and be in compliance at all times.

rater8 is not a full-service marketing agency. We do not offer website building, paid ad services, or social media management. We do healthcare reputation management and we do it really, really well – better than the rest.

If your medical practice is in need of marketing services outside our domain, we partner with a number of amazing healthcare marketing agencies that we will proudly and confidently refer you to.

Ultimately, rater8 is a complement to your marketing agency, not a competitor or replacement.

For better or worse, anyone can leave a review on Google, Healthgrades, Vitals, Facebook, and other top healthcare review sites.

However, with rater8 Verified Reviews pages, we guarantee reviews are from actual patients. This is because only real, verified patients are invited to leave their feedback. Patients receive a text or email immediately following their appointment at your medical practice.

In summary, a random individual cannot leave a rater8 review. It’s invite-only. As a result, you can be 100% confident that the feedback is from a verified patient.

No – your patients need a Gmail account to leave a Google review.

WebMD, Vitals, and Healthgrades do not require user logins or profiles. Patients also do not need a profile to leave a rater8 Verified Review.

The short answer is no, and this is by design. Unlike some of our competitors, we do not let patients pick where to leave a review. We automatically direct patients to the review platform where you need the most help.

Imagine you have a 85 reviews and a 4.9 star rating on Google, but your Healthgrades profile is a meager 3 stars with only 5 reviews. rater8’s sophisticated algorithm knows to send the next review request to Healthgrades, not Google.

Your online reviews should look good across all review platforms, not just on one or two. Automatically redirecting patients to the right review platform ensures you create a balanced, polished online image every time.