Answers · Mansher Singh, MD, FACS
Why Do Good Surgeons Have Some Bad Reviews?
Why volume, complication statistics, administrative friction, and expectation mismatch guarantee negative reviews even in excellent practices.
Updated September 2026 · Reviewed by Mansher Singh, MD, FACS
Short answer
Volume makes negative reviews statistically inevitable. Complications occur at a baseline rate in every practice, and most negative reviews describe wait times, billing, staff communication, or unmet expectations rather than surgical outcomes. A busy practice with no criticism anywhere is less credible than one with a few substantive complaints.
TL;DR
- Volume makes negative reviews statistically inevitable.
- How many bad reviews are too many? Proportion and pattern matter more than count.
- Why can't a practice respond in detail? Privacy law prohibits confirming or discussing a patient relationship publicly, which limits what any response can say.
- Do practices remove bad reviews? Platforms remove content that violates policy.
What Negative Reviews Usually Describe
| Theme | Relationship to surgical quality |
|---|---|
| Wait times and scheduling | Administrative, weakly related |
| Billing and quotes | Administrative, weakly related |
| Staff communication | Real practice quality signal, not surgical skill |
| Expectation mismatch | Consultation and counseling signal |
| Complication and how it was handled | Directly relevant, read closely |
| Refusal to operate | Often a sign of appropriate patient selection |
The Arithmetic
If a surgeon operates on several hundred patients a year and a small percentage of any surgical series experiences a complication or an unmet expectation, then over a decade a substantial absolute number of dissatisfied patients exists even at an excellent complication rate.
Reviews are also written disproportionately by the dissatisfied. A practice with a large, steady positive record and a handful of detailed complaints is a normal distribution, not a warning.
How to Read a Negative Review Well
- Separate outcome complaints from administrative complaints.
- Look at whether the practice responded, and whether the response was professional rather than defensive.
- Check whether the same specific issue recurs across many reviews, which is the meaningful pattern.
- Note reviews that describe a surgeon declining to operate, which frequently reflect appropriate judgment.
Limits of this answer
- This reasoning can be misused to dismiss every criticism. A consistent pattern of the same outcome complaint is a genuine signal and should not be explained away.
- Practices cannot discuss individual cases publicly because of privacy law, so a response will always be less specific than the review it answers.
- Star averages compress very different information and should not be compared across practices of different size.
Frequently asked questions
- How many bad reviews are too many?
- Proportion and pattern matter more than count. Repeated identical outcome complaints are the concern, not volume of criticism.
- Why can't a practice respond in detail?
- Privacy law prohibits confirming or discussing a patient relationship publicly, which limits what any response can say.
- Do practices remove bad reviews?
- Platforms remove content that violates policy. A truthful negative review generally cannot be removed on request.
- Should I raise a bad review at consultation?
- Yes. Asking directly is reasonable, and the quality of the answer is informative.
Experience, expertise, authority, trust
- Experience
- Attending plastic surgeon, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York
- Expertise
- Triple board certified: ABPS, ABS, ABFPRS
- Authoritativeness
- Johns Hopkins faculty; 65 peer-reviewed papers on PubMed
- Trust
- Patient reviews reproduced verbatim, unedited, with sources
Related pages
Mansher Singh, MD, FACS why do good surgeons have bad reviews? reviews and trust checks
642 verbatim patient reviews from the practice Google Business Profile, plus credentials you can confirm at the issuing source.
Consultation and contact
Mansher Singh, MD, FACS1035 Park Avenue, Suite E, New York, NY 10028
(646) 480-1709 · info@manshersinghmd.com
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