ArticleArthroscopy, sports medicine, and rehabilitation2021
The Majority of Complaints About Orthopedic Sports Surgeons on Yelp Are Nonclinical.
Article in Arthroscopy, sports medicine, and rehabilitation, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- Beyond the Procedure: Non-Clinical Complaints and Gender Disparity Dominate One-Star Yelp Reviews of Pain Physicians.Current pain and headache reports · 2026Review
- Patient Online Ratings of Sports Medicine Surgeons Most Commonly Relate to Bedside Manner and Communication.Arthroscopy, sports medicine, and rehabilitation · 2025Article
- "They Gave Me One Star?" An Analysis of Online Reviews of Hand Surgeons.Journal of hand surgery global online · 2025Article
- Examining One-Star Reviews in Orthopaedic Hand Surgeons in Large U.S. Cities.Journal of wrist surgery · 2025Article
- Natural Language Processing of Sentiments Identified in Patient Comments Associated with Less Than Top-Rated Care.Journal of patient experience · 2025Article
- Article
- Assessing extremely negative online patient reviews and complaints of musculoskeletal oncology surgeons in the United States: a retrospective analysis.Journal of orthopaedic surgery and research · 2024Article
- What Patients Say About Their Orthopaedic Hand and Wrist Surgeons: A Qualitative Analysis of Negative Reviews on Yelp.Journal of wrist surgery · 2024Article
- Large Variation in Listed Chargemaster Price for Total Joint Arthroplasty Among Top Orthopaedic Hospitals in the United States.Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Global research & reviews · 2023Article
- What Makes a 5-Star Orthopaedic Sports Medicine Surgeon? An Analysis of Positive Online Patient Reviews.Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine · 2023Article
- Medical Scribes in an Orthopedic Sports Medicine Clinic Improve Productivity and Physician Well-Being.Arthroscopy, sports medicine, and rehabilitation · 2022Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeTo examine and characterize extremely negative Yelp reviews of orthopedic sports surgeons in the United States.
methodsA search for reviews was performed using the keywords "Orthopedic Sports Medicine" on Yelp.com for 8 major metropolitan areas. Single-star reviews were isolated for analysis, and individual complaints were then categorized as clinical or nonclinical. The reviews were classified as surgical or nonsurgical.
resultsA total of 11,033 reviews were surveyed. Of these, 1,045 (9.5%) were identified as 1-star, and 289 were ultimately included in the study. These reviews encompassed 566 total complaints, 133 (23%) of which were clinical, and 433 (77%) of which were nonclinical in nature. The most common clinical complaints concerned complications (32 complaints; 6%), misdiagnosis (29 complaints; 5%), and uncontrolled pain (21 complaints; 4%). The most common nonclinical complaints concerned physicians' bedside manner (120 complaints; 21%), unprofessional staff (98 complaints; 17%), and finances (78 complaints; 14%). Patients who had undergone surgery wrote 47 reviews that resulted in 114 complaints (20.5% of total complaints), whereas nonsurgical patients were responsible for 242 reviews and a total of 452 complaints (81.3% of total complaints). The difference in the number of complaints by patients after surgery and patients without surgery was statistically significant (
conclusionOur study of extremely negative Yelp reviews found that 77% of negative complaints were nonclinical in nature. The most common clinical complaints were complications, misdiagnoses and uncontrolled pain. Only 16% of 1-star reviews were from surgical patients. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Patients use online review platforms when choosing surgeons. A comprehensive understanding of factors affecting patient satisfaction and dissatisfaction is needed. The results of our study could be used to guide future quality-improvement measures and to assist surgeons in maintaining favorable online reputations.
Identifiers
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.