'Rate-a-doc' sites making the grade?
Doctors are not thrilled about the growing crop of Web sites that invite patients to post online Zagat-style ratings and comments about their physicians.
Nobody likes having his performance judged, and the anonymity of the Internet encourages the sort of no-holds-barred criticism that can feel -- and may be --unfair.
But physician opposition to these sites seems shortsighted. Instead of trying to discourage people from sharing their opinions, doctors might be better served if they used the sites to learn what their patients think.
Sure, the information is subjective, but why should consumers rule it out on that basis? Patients are paying more for their health coverage, and they want value for their money. It's not easy to comparison shop for doctors. Everyone agrees that we need more reliable tools to help patients evaluate clinical competence and improve pricing "transparency."
But communication skills and accessibility matter, too, and other patients may be the best sources for those details.
Insurers and others have been forging ahead. In January, the insurer WellPoint announced that it has teamed up with restaurant-rating company Zagat to launch a new physician rating service for all plan members in four states by the end of this month. The tool lets people assign their physicians points for trustworthiness, communication skills, availability and office environment.
It will join other sites, such as the recently launched TheHealthcareScoop.com, CareSeek.com and RateMDs.com. My personal favorite, RateMDs, is the heavy hitter in this arena, with ratings on more than 125,000 doctors.
Anonymous opinions? Beware, says the American Medical Association's president-elect, Nancy Nielsen.
Such sites "add nothing to the quality of patient-physician communication and understanding," she said in a statement. "There is no guarantee that the opinions about a physician even come from that physician's patient -- anonymous opinions can come from anyone."
Fingers tingling in anticipation, I logged in and clicked around the rating sites, on the lookout for bones being picked and axes being ground.
What I found surprised me. People are indeed opinionated on these sites. But the majority of online posters -- 75 percent of those on RateMDs, for example, according to the site's cofounder John Swapceinski -- want others to know how good their doctors are, going on at (sometimes tedious) length about their virtues.
Sometimes the tributes are so over the top it makes you wonder if the doctors themselves are goosing their ratings. Anonymity, after all, cuts both ways.
Warmed by all of the sunny accolades, I searched the RateMDs site for my own doctor, whose skills are top-notch, in my opinion. But dismay! Her rating, based on one review, is "poor." Clicking through to get specifics, I see that the poster thinks the doctor herself is "fine" but dislikes her office, which, I admit, is impersonal.
Of course, you can't rely too much on one review. (The WellPoint site won't rate a doctor until 10 patients have registered their opinions.) Still, the comment was typical of the negative reviews I saw: thoughtful, specific and potentially constructive.
No one is suggesting that people use anonymous doctor-rating sites as their sole means of evaluating a physician. A doctor's clinical competence, which can't be judged reliably from online sources, is critical. But harrumphing that consumers should shun these sites smacks of medical paternalism. After more than a decade of shopping, dating and researching topics online, Web users know that what they see is not always what they get.