Review-Building Software: eMerit vs. Birdeye, Weave, DearDoc, & Others 

Physician comparing review building software for medical practice reputation and SEO
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If you are a physician trying to protect your medical practice from false claims online and to bolster your reputation, you have several review-building program options—eMerit from Medical Justice (that’s us!), Birdeye, Weave, and Reputation Defender are some of the big ones.

eMerit vs. Other Review-Building Programs

While competitors promise some of the same core benefits as our eMerit program does—a dashboard for monitoring your online reviews, as well as a review collection workflow to boost your online presence—a close comparison reveals that most of these programs’ benefits end there. 

Niche medico-legal expertise comes naturally to our team. By contrast, many review-monitoring systems are run by marketing professionals who may lack the nuanced understanding of both a medical practice and the legal landscape in which you operate.

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eMerit by Medical Justice

Birdeye, SocialClimb, ScoreMyReviews, ReviewInc

DearDoc, Weave, DocResponse, NexHealth

Reputation Defender

Review collection workflow & support

Dashboard for monitoring your online reviews

Focus on medical practice niche

Local SEO

Human (non-AI), HIPAA-certified, assistance with responding to negative reviews

Direct medico-legal hotline

Lawyer-reviewed templates to assist with patient conflict resolution

Accretion of retroactive coverage

Early action program to prevent escalation of frivolous lawsuits

Help in locating volunteer experts if you are a defendant

eMerit from Medical Justice membership includes additional priceless benefits that are not part of our competitors’ plans, including:

  • Access to our direct medico-legal hotline, for anytime there is a whiff of a medico-legal headache
  • Customized, lawyer-reviewed templates to assist with patient conflict resolution, i.e. unjustified demands for refunds and patient dismissals
  • Help when you are in a dicey legal scenario, i.e. deterrence and early action against frivolous lawsuits, or helping to locate volunteer experts to help when you are a defendant
  • Accretion of retroactive coverage over time, beginning with the time you joined Medical Justice, for past issues

We have even worked to help our clients petition Google to reinstate missing organic reviews that were erroneously deleted, utilizing our records. You are unlikely to find this level of service and hands-on approach in other services.

Finally, with us, you will work with medico-legal experts, making us better equipped to safeguard your practice. Medical Justice’ eMerit program was founded by experts who are able to offer a more comprehensive, robust membership plan—one that is tailored with physicians in mind.

You will find that many “review-building” platforms are simply add-ons to electronic health record systems. Patient document management software is fundamentally different from reputation management software. With eMerit, reputation management and reputation marketing is our entire focus—we start with review building, and offer additional benefits for managing your reputation that go above and beyond what other companies can offer.

Below, we go into further detail about the different experiences you will have with eMerit and a few other top review-building tools for healthcare practices:

Like eMerit, Birdeye offers a platform for managing your reputation online. However, Birdeye’s helpfulness stops there. With Medical Justice, your online dashboard will be complemented by (a) our support in de-escalating conflicts that, if mishandled, could lead to false claims about you online, (b) as well as the experts in healthcare law who are at your disposal through our hotline.

Further, when it comes to posting HIPAA-compliant responses to negative reviews, Birdeye emphasizes its AI tool to help you draft responses. While AI can help to generate a first draft, the expertise of our human eMerit team in crafting these responses cannot be replaced with any AI that we have ever tried—especially in the legally sensitive area of online HIPAA compliance. We’re here for you every step of the way—we do not leave you on your own to handle this very sensitive moment, which can often have a lasting effect on the future of your practice!

Weave offers a broad suite of practice management tools, one of which is a software with a dashboard for monitoring and responding to online reviews. For review collection, the software emphasizes texts sent to clients after they leave your practice—which we do not recommend. Rather, the eMerit review collection workflow involves review collection at your practice. 

Weave also, like Birdeye, leaves you on your own to respond to reviews, positive and negative, with the help of AI. At eMerit, we do not recommend responding to positive reviews, as this practice tends to result in accidental HIPAA violations. And when it comes to negative reviews, we help you craft a HIPAA-compliant, human-approved response ASAP.

Reputation Defender by norton is also software for monitoring reviews, as well as your online presence on non-review websites. Unfortunately, this software is created to appeal to a broad variety of industries—small service businesses, retail, and many more that are outside of the medical/healthcare specialty. Thus, this program lacks the nuance required for physicians—HIPAA compliance, as well as the very real legal risks that come with every single online interaction between a medical practice and patients. 

On the other hand, with Medical Justice, you will receive personalized attention, tools, and advice that are specific to your field, helping you to stave off medico-legal threats effectively.


Let’s talk about your online reputation.

While other companies may focus more on creating a fancy-looking app than on keeping your practice safe from threats online (or that may eventually affect you online), rest assured the team at Medical Justice has your priorities straight. We work to increase your online reviews while also safeguarding your practice holistically, especially with conflict de-escalation strategies and templates to prevent a disgruntled patient from escalating into numerous angry online reviews or, worse, a lawsuit. And, our reputation software looks and functions great, too!

To show how serious we are about your online reputation, the team of medico-legal experts at Medical Justice offers free 15-minute, face-to-face conversation. Schedule one today to learn about our recommendations for safeguarding the future of your medical practice and growing a robust online reputation.

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Jeffrey Segal, MD, JD
Chief Executive Officer & Founder

Jeffrey Segal, MD, JD is a board-certified neurosurgeon and lawyer. In the process of conceiving, funding, developing, and growing Medical Justice, Dr. Segal has established himself as one of the country's leading authorities on medical malpractice issues, counterclaims, and internet-based assaults on reputation.

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