Performance Reviews Patients can read about you and rate you online

by David Orenstein free-lance writer

Ever since the Web became a consumer resource, people have used it to research illnesses and injuries. What has been less common is consumers using the Web to research you—the physician from whom they might seek treatment. A recent study suggests that this might change soon. As consumers increasingly use the Web to look you up, what kind of information will they find?

What prospective patients want to find is actual ratings of your care, according to a report in the Fall 2002 Journal of Healthcare Information Management (www.himss.org). The authors surveyed 793 professors and students at the University of Wisconsin–Madison about how they use—and would like to use—the Web for health care. On a scale from 1 to 3, where 1 is “never use” and 3 is “often use,” using the Web to find a physician rated only 1.3, compared to 1.98 for researching an illness. When those surveyed were asked what they would like to use the Web for, “individual ratings and reviews of doctors” rated 2.33.

A reasonable inference from this data is that people would use the Web to research physicians if they believed the Web could tell them more information than they could find in the phone book.

A good place for people to start their research is the free, but not very flashy, site of the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners. By checking “Web-based License Verification” (www.tsbme.state.tx.us/verification/webverif.htm) or “Physician Profiles” (www.tsbme.state.tx.us/agency/profile.htm), patients can learn where you went to school, if your license is current, and whether the TSBME has disciplined you.

If a physician has been disciplined, the site tells when it happened and the result. One gynecologist, whom I’ll call Dr X, received a public reprimand “due to failure to practice medicine in an acceptable manner consistent with public health and welfare.” That might be enough information to persuade some patients to choose another physician.

People who want more information, including ratings, might check WebMD (www.webmd.com), a popular healthcare site. If a patient looked up Dr X, she would see some of the same background information as on the TSBME site, but not the disciplinary history. When the patient looked at the ratings, in fact, she would get a very different sense. Dr X has been rated by two people who offered high marks on a variety of criteria including “doctor’s ability to explain things in a way you could understand” and “amount of time you had with the doctor.”

There are caveats to the ratings on WebMD’s site, however. One is that two patients are hardly enough to compose a statistically useful sampling. Another caveat is that there is no way to ensure that people offering ratings actually are patients (WebMD does have greater safeguards to protect against false testimonials). I was able to rate Dr X without ever having been his patient (I innocuously checked “Does Not Apply” for each criterion).

BestDoctors.com (www.bestdoctors.com) promises to deliver a more rigorous evaluation of physicians. The site says it solicits doctors to nominate outstanding physicians and then backs that up with independent research. The site proudly proclaims that it does not ask or allow doctors to pay to be listed. The price of its labor and integrity is an annual $35 subscription. For higher fees, the company also performs research for patients and organizations.

Other routes to researching physicians online include doing a general Internet search (such as at google.com) and seeing what comes up. If you haven’t done so, check yourself out online. You might be surprised at what you see.

David Orenstein is a technology and business writer in Silicon Valley. To learn more about a technology topic in Computing Care, e-mail him at davealli@attbi.com.