Patient advocate Trisha Torrey has some great advice about doctor rating sites. In a recent post she writes,
“take other patients’ reviews with a grain of salt. We patients may be great at determining how nice a doctor is, but do you want your choice of doctor being influenced by someone who was just ticked off that she waited in the waiting room for too long? Don’t forget, too — there is nothing to stop the doctor herself, or her spouse or nurses to fill out those ratings questionnaires.
Someday, when there a dozen or more reviews for every physician, and someone figures out a way to make real assessments from them, I’ll revisit my opinion.”
“Most of these sites exist for only one reason – to make money. Knowing they are intended to generate income for their owners, we patients must make sure they contain useful information without a “cost” we shouldn’t be expected to pay in money, time or privacy of our information.”
Our points EXACTLY!!! That is why Medical Justice is working on a system that is verifiable, with statisicaly significant sample size and gives physicians a voice in the process.
You can read her full posts here;
