Expert questions private facilities' credibility over use of online promotion
Many private hospitals are resorting to paid listing services on Chinese Internet search engines such as Baidu to drum up patients, The Beijing News reported on Monday.
An investigation found that many private hospitals sought higher rankings from search engines including Baidu, Qihoo 360 and Sogou via paid listing services that direct more Internet traffic to their websites and ultimately increase patient visits.
"Taking a private hospital in Beijing that specializes in andrology as an example, patient attendance created by the paid listing service accounts for 30 to 40 percent of the hospital's annual total attendance," Li Delin (pseudonym), an executive at Beijing Yingcai hospital management company, told The Beijing News.
"The annual cost of promoting a private hospital can reach up to 80 million yuan ($12.264 million)," Li said.
"On average, every patient visiting that private andrology hospital needs to pay 3,000 yuan to cover the cost of the promotion fee," Li added.
A paid listing service's promotion fee goes toward bringing a customer's website higher on the list of online search engine results for selected keywords, a Beijing-based insider at a big data analysis company told the Global Times on condition of anonymity. "The users of such services now mainly include private hospitals and real estate companies," he said.
An unnamed expert with Peking University Third Hospital told The Beijing News that he advised patients not to visit hospitals that engage in paid listing, questioning their credibility. He noted that the website of Peking Union Medical College Hospital - which offers the top level of clinical reproductive medical services available in China - is listed below the 20th search engine result.
"The paid listing service itself should not be blamed, as it is indeed a type of advertising," claimed the big data analysis insider.
He said that netizens can distinguish advertisements for hospitals since a set of rules has already been established for results listed through the paid listing service, which must be identified by a mark saying "promotion."
Every client from the medical industry must go through a stringent qualification inspection process in line with related laws and regulations before using the paid listing service, Chinese search engine giant Baidu explained in a written response sent to the Global Times on Tuesday.
However, "Web pages containing negative information about the hospitals that have made use of the paid listing service are moved downward on the search results list, which may require patients to spend more time and energy to make a good decision amid a wide variety of choices," said the insider.
He said that the government should formulate more detailed legal regulations on the content and form of results retrieved through paid listing services.
