44: WhatClinic.com - FOR GENERAL INFO ONLY!

This subject recently came up in the Topix forums and thought I would expand on it a bit here. WhatClinic is a site that people can go to and search for different types of medical clinics. I think it's a good place to get the basic information of a clinic such as what they offer, who the doctors are and to read some reviews. But DO NOT let the reviews you read be your deciding factor on what clinic to choose. You will hardly ever find a negative review on that site. The clinic gets the say as to what reviews are posted about them. The clinic pays WhatClinic.com to be on their site...sort of an advertisement.

Here is a report on WhatClinic that I found....

"At Whatclinic.com , go to "Add Your Clinic" in the upper right corner. It opens a page where doctors can sign up. Near the big yellow "Sign Up" button, select "Terms and Conditions". There, you will clearly find that Whatclinic.com is frequently paid by the doctors for listings under a number of schemes, though it does indicate there is some form of free account.

Now, the scam. Select any doctor, and attempt to make a review on that doctor. Try "Review This Clinic" towards the bottom of the page. On the subsequent page where you can fill in the review, there's a button all the way on the bottom of the review named "Review Policy". Click that.

The Whatclinic.com review policy clearly states that they are not a review site. All patient reviews are submitted to the clinic, and the review is only published if the clinic approves the review. It also stipulates that aggregate consumer ratings only include those ratings that meet their guidelines. Patients are forbidden from making a defamatory review, and no reports of criminal activity are permitted. 

The review policy states that if the clinic refuses to allow a patient review to be published, then that will be disclosed on the clinic's review page. OK, there are complaints at the Ripoff Report that Whatclinic.com refused to publish their negative review of Doctor Alberto Coto Calvo of San Juan, Costa Rica. Well, his review page is here: http://www.whatclinic.com/dentists/costa-rica... and you're a better person than I if you can spot where Whatclinic.com made the disclosure they promised in their policy.

My opinion time. There are a lot of marketing websites scattered all across the web that are no more than hype for services. They are paid by subscribers (doctors in this case) to make the advertisements appear like objective consumer ratings. Throwing out the reviews you don't like is far from objective. In my opinion, I consider words like lies, fraud, misrepresentation, scam, illegitimate, and don't use if you care about your health to be far more accurate. Don't use Whatclinic.com as a source for choosing a dentist."

source: http://bit.ly/1ze8faB

Another site that has something to say about WhatClinic: http://whatclinic.pissedconsumer.com

So again...it's an OK site to get the general info on a clinic but that's about it. You can be looking at a clinic on that site and be reading some good reviews and say to yourself, "wow...all positive reviews and nothing negative so it must be a great clinic". Well you don't see hardly any negative reviews because the clinic will not approve those to be posted. Some clinics who have a lot of positive reviews, say 30 or more, will allow a not so favorable review to be posted once or twice because they feel it makes the whole thing look more realistic. This is obviously all about $ for both the clinic and for the site WhatClinic.com

For your research be sure to be diligent, methodical, intelligent and dare I say a bit obsessive. It pays off.