YELP a Clinic Near You!

You rate your favorite restaurants on Yelp.com, you "like" your favorite groups and pages on Facebook.com, and you check out movie reviews before you go see them. Why not do this for clinics? Ever thought how great it would be to get a little extra info before you go to your local clinic? What are the docs like? How long is the wait? Do they help you find the right birth control? Seriously, out of five stars, how many have other people given it? When I asked some teens at Cole St. Youth Clinic the other day, "Wouldn't it be cool if there was like some kind of Yelp reviews for Teen Clinics?" they gave me a funny look and said "There is. It's called Yelp." Oh. Duh.

I checked out a couple local San Francisco clinics on Yelp, and found 63 review for Golden Gate Community Health, 2 for Choice Medical Group, and 3 for the Cole St. Clinic. Here's one of the reviews for Cole St.:

"love this place - they are awesome, great docs, and free for the uninsured. I would almost say it's better than my doctor now that i have health insurance. they even detected some cold i had and gave me free meds on the spot. top notch place, and hopefully they won't be impacted by budget cuts!"

- marylou l.

Pretty good info, too. Stuff on wait times, staff that people really liked, and tons of info on the services that they provide. Hey, sweet. We don't have to re-invent the wheel here! 

AND it seems like Yelp and Facebook "likes" and movie reviews are all about personal opinion. Not really a big picture type thing. That's why we are putting together a brand new Clinic Profile feature on TeenSource.org. We'll put the "no-opinions, just info" picture out there - with photos, videos, and lots of great info to get you hooked up to a local clinic.

In the meantime - keep the reviews in mind. The whole info-before-you-get-there thing is super helpful, and might make it just a little more comfortable to check out a clinic you've never been to.