Patients Rate Doctors Online - A New Web Site

Proving once again that medicine is a tough field...  A new web site allows the public to rate and comment about doctors online; RateMDs.com. The site claims that as of today 20,379 physicians have been rated, with 74 new ones added yesterday. Developers assert that the site is changing the way the world looks at medicine by providing patients with the unique opportunity to rate and read about their doctors.

Those who post ratings and comments do so anonymously, and each physician listed gets an overall rating expressed in the form of a smiling, frowning, or neutral icon.

The FAQs note that 'comments should be about professional ability. New ratings are reviewed, and we reserve the right to delete comments or an entire rating.' To the question 'I'm a doctor. How do I get my name removed from your site? The response is ' The short answer is, you don't.''

The potential for abuse is obvious given that posters may remain anonymous. On the other hand, if posters had to list their names few negative comments would ever get added.

I looked up a couple of different physicians I know, one rated positively one negatively; and I have to say that the comments accurately reflected my personal views and experience.

In reality, this is just a modernized version of "word of mouth" advertising, with the catch being that  we have no way of knowing anything about the credibility of "the mouth."

This site, or others like it that follow, will no doubt begin to be checked as part of a routine credentialing process, so the implications to healthcare providers are considerable.

Additional comment 11/06

Comments

[Domenico Savatta, MD]

This is a very interseting website.

Morally I am in favor of it.

My specialty is the treatment of urologic cancers and minimally invasive surgery with an emphasis on robotic surgery.

I have a patient satisfaction questionairre that my office staff hands out to all of my robotic surgery patients at 4 weeks.

It is procedure specific, but the bulk of my robotic patients (75%) are for prostate cancer and my questions are related to their satisfaction with myself, the hospital that surgery was done at, and their outcomes as compared to their expectations for getting back to activities and urinary control.

The major problem with this site is the unaccountability.
You can also have users make up comments about people that are not their doctors.

You can also have docs self promote their own practices by making up things.

If the site forced people to identify themselves so at least the site knew who they were, Id have much less of a problem with it.

Thanks,
Domenico Savatta, MD

[Atul]

You may like to check out http://www.healthia.com/doctor/. They have a much larger list of doctors that you can review.

[George Wilson]

You may also be interested in DrugRatingz.com, a website where patients rate and talk about their prescription drugs.

[unhappy patient]

A Neurologist in Colorado Springs was condescending, uncaring, rude, arrogant - ordered an MRI for me, then wanted to charge me an additional $50 copay to read the results

[James]

You might want to check out http://www.mydochub.com. They rate doctors based on waiting room time, total time spent at the appointment and staff efficiency. It is for busy moms or professionals who want to know the doctors average wait time before they book an appointment. A total satisfaction score is also provided. Users generate the ratings for others to use.

[appalled]

A dermatologist with offices in Fairfax, Virginia and Rockville, Maryland, is the most profit motivated doctor I have ever encountered. If you go in for a routine skin problem she tries to sell you cosmetic procedures unrelated to the problem. I went in for advanced stage rosacea and she recommended liposuction on my chin. I told her I was worried about the rosacea because it is potentially disfiguring. She said that some people might consider my double chin disfiguring. Then she sent in her office manager who gave me the hard sell on the chin job. I had not even expressed an interest in the procedure. I am 55 and obese and liposuction on my chin would leave me with a turkey dewlap - then the doctor would have had to have done a a face lift of course. I told another dermatologist about it and he said that responsible doctors would always recommend weight loss first and that to do so was professionally unethical.

[Kathy]

I went to a plastic surgeon in Florida, Dr Anita M, for info about a mini lift. We came to an agreement on the price and she suggested financing. When I went to her office to sign the finance papers I was told that there was an additional transaction fee. Finance company said only fee was Dr M's fee to finance company for using them. When I asked what the fee was Dr M and her staff refused to answer me. When I persisted Dr M told me to leave her office and she no longer wanted me as a patient. When I asked for my $1000 down payment back Dr M said I would get it "someday". I am in the process of taking Dr M to small claims court. However, from info I have read on www.ratemds.com Dr M has moved from state to state whenever she has been sued. I am searching for another mini face lift Dr and checking all reviews and doing a much more extensive background check.

[dallas h]

i have a question: i want to go to school in the medical field and i want to know what doctors look for when hiring someone fresh out of school.

[LOCAL MD]

I had a note from my daughter regarding Rae MD. There were several negative ratings and some positive. What was amazing was that the negatives were from patients that did not want to follow my advice, were looking for specific medications that I did not want to prescribe, and were not getting well. One of them had seen me for three years, one for four five times. I run about 15 minutes behind, for four reasons.
1 if a patient is late I do not ask them to reschedule, I work them in( that is a problem in itself because I cannot give the pre allotted time without really screwing up my schedule. 2 I give patients more than the allotted 15 min if they need it (you cannot kick out a suicidal person from the office just because time is up for med check but you can be form with some one who just wants their way, such as sleeping pills) 3 There are emergencies 4 Some times the staff or I simply mess up and don't plan well. This is especially the result of doing hospital work.
My patients do get annoyed when I set limits on them. I cannot help it.
What I will do is have a system of evaluating patient satisfaction.
I must be dong something right. I take no insurance and people still come to see me! I do not advertise, even in yellow pages any longer.

[Medical Web Expert]

I am a physicist, and run my own clinic. Marketing was a part that generally doctors are unaware of. I made one website which I though would help me ameliorate my business and also to provide information regarding the health issues, but it doesn’t make a great difference as it was far not found on search engines. Then, I came across a website designing and marketing company named as medicalwebexperts.com, with whom I had a contract for advertising and optimizing my website to make it google-friendly. The main problem with my website was found to be improper website coding, which resisted my website to be listed in top most search. The company did well in reconstructing my website, making it popular using SEO techniques. They also added the functionalities like education to patients, patient portals to keep track of their health, discussion board to allow every patient to express their opinions and experiences, which might help other patients. Such facilities helped my patients to interact with each other, making their life better to live. The benefits were then slowly coming into action. The trust factor and the soft corner for the doctors seemed to emerge in patients. And that was the greatest achievement for me. Website helped me getting a good sum of patients at my doorstep. Web marketing really helped my business work, making my investments in SEO worthy.

[seo for doctors]

Hmmm... Interesting point of view. Ought to be Dugg.