Perspective Perspective
Online Physician Reviews Timothy Lesaca, MD Online physician reviews have generated impassioned critiques both pro and con. Although physician online rating sites have provided an impressive volume of potentially useful feedback information, physicians had not necessarily responded favorably to the abrupt exposure to occasional negative reviews. This is in stark contrast to patient rights advocates who believe that doctors should be subjected to the same public scrutiny as any other service or business provider. There is value in receiving useful feedback regardless of one’s station in life. A potentially constructive reviewer, however, might be negatively balanced by a disgruntled individual intent on ruining a doctor’s reputation. In the context of a small sample size, one negative review can tremendously downgrade a doctor’s overall online reputation. This becomes more egregious when the patient’s reasoning involves basic disagreements on the doctor’s assessments and treatment recommendations. Whether this all seems fair or not, online reviews for doctors are now considered the most important factor among many patients in choosing a new health care provider. Recent surveys indicate that online information has become more important in
selecting a physician then another doctor’s referral. Similar surveys indicate that over 80% of respondents went online to read the reviews of a doctor after receiving the referral from another provider. None of this should be particularly surprising, considering the growing consumerism of health care, and the strong momentum created by the COVID-19 pandemic toward online activities. Digital preference for investigating providers existed well before the pandemic, but COVID-19 accelerated this process dramatically. In choosing a new primary care physician for example, approximately 50% of patients first go online to review the doctor, whereas only about 20% seek recommendation from another health care provider. According to Press Ganey, search engines such as Google are the most used digital references accessed by patients to find a doctor. The leading website destinations for a doctor search include WebMD, Healthgrades, Facebook, and independent hospital websites. Somehow it seems reasonable to expect that patients who find their physicians online will also rely heavily upon online resources to provide feedback on those doctors. It is also equally logical to understand the
skepticism felt by many doctors who worry that physician online rating sites encourage destructive acting out by begrudged patients who might not necessarily understand the technical aspects of health care delivery. Furthermore, there is justifiable frustration in that physicians are usually unable to refute negative reviews without jeopardizing patient confidentiality. Patient empowerment and selfexpression in health care does not occur in a vacuum, as the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has an established set of core quality measures for health care, with patient experience being one of the critical domains. Furthermore, traditional government and health care organizations have routinely initiated surveys incorporating patient-reported outcome measures in their routine questionnaires. Within the context of these developments, physician online reading sites had become a consumer driven alternative and perhaps a cathartic outlet for patients to provide instant feedback on their health care experiences. Even if one were to stipulate the argument that online review sites such as Vitals, Healthgrades, RateMDs, and Continued on Page 12
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