How Good Are Online Doctor Ratings?
People already choose restaurants, movies, and their college professors based on what they read on the Internet, so it’s inevitable that many will research their doctors on the Web as well. But there are some good reasons consumers should be wary of the information they find online about doctors.
Full article on online doctor ratings.
Good point. How do you make the ratings fair?
Doctors object to anonymous patient ratings. I can definitely see their point. If I were a physician I would want the ability to answer accusations about my performance.
I read a report where one physician complained when a patient criticized the waiting time to see the doctor after arriving for a scheduled appointment. In that regard, I have little sympathy for the doctor. Customer service should always be a consideration in addition to a physician’s clinical skills. For instance, eBay allows buyers to rate sellers on a point scale that includes shipping, timeliness, accuracy, etc. As physicians have pointed out, online physician rating sites do not yet really convey enough pertinent information to really select a physician. But the web sites are probably better than blindly pulling a name out of a PPO’s participating physician list.
One thing for sure, any rating system that comes from the government or the union (the AMA) will be worse than what’s out there now.
More information is probably better than less.
Unlike eBay where both the seller and buyer are rated, anonymous doctor ratings are susceptible to lots of abuse. Suppose a patient doesn’t want to pay their bill and gets pi$$y about it and seeks revenge by posting a negative rating. Not for the bill, but they make up a story about rudeness or lack of bedside manner or a wrong diagnosis. Who’s to challenge that? Likewise, glowing reviews could be written by the employees of the doc or the doc himself/herself. Who’s to know? there needs to be a better system.