Features
How Do You Rank?
Online physician-rating websites have been around for
more than a decade, but many physicians and patients
still have questions about how to use them.
The way people access information has
changed substantially in the last 15 to
20 years, and that is no different for how
consum ers find physicians. Gone are
the days when a family, or even a town,
sees the same doctor. In the information
age, people can pick a doctor based on
reviews, ratings, and rankings posted
by other patients on online physicianrating websites.
Just as they might search for a
reputable contractor on AngiesList.com,
patients can search for a physician on a
variety of online rating websites – includ-
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ASH Clinical News
ing Vitals.com, RateMDs.com, and even
Yelp.com – and use the information they
find to decide whether or not to see that
physician for care, without ever having
met him or her face to face.
A study published in JAMA in
2014 by David A. Hanauer, MD, and
colleagues found that consumers are
basing their decisions on these types of
rating websites more and more. Among
a group of 2,137 survey respondents, 59
percent believed that physician ratings
sites were “somewhat important” or
“very important” when it came to select-
ing a physician.1 More than one-third of
respondents reported selecting a physician based on a positive rating, and 37
percent avoided a physician because of a
negative rating.
“The online rating websites seem
to be filling a big void,” Dr. Hanauer,
clinical associate professor of pediatrics
at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in the
University of Michigan Health System
in Ann Arbor, Michigan, told ASH
Clinical News. “Before these websites,
patients had no easily accessible place to
go to find information about physicians.
July 2016