Startups

This healthcare startup positions itself at intersection of social networks and physician reviews

Voro offers a different approach to physician reviews, but will the New York-based business resonate with users?

One of the trends amidst the push to value-based care is narrow networks. The thinking is that in a more sophisticated healthcare universe, people will make logical, informed decisions about the physicians they use based on price and quality.

People tend to go to their personal networks for various decisions they need to make, even when it comes to the physician they choose. Why? Because they trust the people they know.

That perspective helps inform why Tomas Hoyos cofounded Voro. The New York City-based healthcare startup is positioned at the intersection of physician reviews and social networks. The program, which has been in public beta since October,  allows participants to leverage social networks with friends and coworkers to share physician recommendations and access their physician reviews.

It’s a significant departure from the anonymous reviews one typically encounters and perhaps not surprisingly the focus is on positive reviews. Doctors like the fact that there is no anonymity in reviews — patients are accountable for what they write. Although poor reviews aren’t treated any differently than positive ones, according to Hoyos, the negative critiques tend to be lukewarm rather than harsh.  Dentists tend to get the brunt of those.

Hoyos observed in an interview that current physician rating sites are difficult to navigate due to tyranny of choice and issues of trust.
“Consumers must sort through long lists of doctors using star ratings that converge on an average number and tend to skew positive,” said Hoyos. ” ZocDoc notes that the average rating for a doctor on their platform after one year is 4.7 stars out of 5. These sites often feature anonymous reviews which may be fake or based on factors that have nothing to do with the quality of care received, such as wait time.”
Voro, however, offers detailed reviews and simple ‘yes’ recommendations from people known to users.
So far, the business is focused on New York City but it also has doctors in its network in New Jersey, New York State, and Connecticut across primary care, dermatology, dentistry, and gynecology. 

There’s a two-way business model for the company, according to Hoyos. It will charge doctors for access to premium features, such as the ability to customize their presence on Voro. This supports their goal of increasing patient volume from word-of-mouth referrals. The business is also piloting a paid enterprise version of Voro that helps company employees find vetted, in-network doctors who are located close to their offices.

Being able to put a face to a name for public reviews can come with its own disadvantages. If people know their reviews will be public they might avoid sharing negative experience. Also, there’s the potential social awkwardness of writing about poor visits, however truthful, especially when a friend or colleague recommended the physician.  Still, it could add more incentives for people to use physicians within their health plan’s network.

Photo: CherriesJD, Getty Images

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