You may turn to the internet to check out doctor ratings and qualifications. But new research shows that you might want to be more careful about where you look.
Hospital for Special Surgery investigators discovered that there were more reviews — and more positive ones overall — on hospital websites for orthopedic surgeons compared to ones on commercial rating websites, according to research published in the journal Orthopedics over the summer and presented recently at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons annual meeting. Such commercial rating websites include Healthgrades.com and Vitals.com.
“While hospital surveys are distributed to patients who received care from a specific doctor, ratings on sites such as Healthgrades and Vitals are often anonymous, and you really don’t know who is posting a review,” Dr. Bradford Waddell, an orthopedic surgeon at Hospital for Special Surgery, said in a statement. “We believe hospital surveys filled out by patients provide data of a higher quality and are a better indication of patient satisfaction.”
These consumer websites — which also include RateMDs.com and UCompareHealthCare.com — have been a popular method for people to express satisfaction or frustration with their medical care. Hospitals and medical practices themselves, too, are beginning to release their own patient satisfaction results. These are typically done via a third party.
This study featured 12 such hospitals/medical practices that as of 2016 all publicly reported patient satisfaction data. In total, this amounted to 415 orthopedic surgeons.
Patients were given surveys either at the time of their visit or, in the case of randomly selected patients, via email or regular mail. Between 18 and 30 percent of patients responded, and most of the health care institutions only made the results public if there were at least 30 ratings in the past 12 to 18 months.
Each survey included between six to 20 questions and asked about communication, trust in their doctor‘s decision-making, how much time they speak with the patient and how they felt about recommending the doctor to other people. When it came to the surveys done by the hospitals, people could rate their doctor on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 as highest.
Of the institutions studied, most had a specific policy to publish all physician ratings — even negative ones — except in the case of offensive, profane or slanderous statements, according to a news release.
William R. Wyatt, the vice president of data science at Healthgrades wasn’t surprised by “subtle differences between doctor reviews,” though he reiterated the importance of online reviews in an email to U.S. News.
“Online reviews create a more holistic image of a physician and help consumers understand what to expect from their provider — whether they turn to a hospital’s website or a third party site like Healthgrades.com to access these reviews.”
He pointed out that hospital systems typically are more in control over survey delivery, and that the consumers third party sites work with are less likely to have completed hospital system surveys since they may have only seen a provider once and then switched.
On a larger scale, patient satisfaction scores can impact things like health care institution quality improvement initiatives as well as doctor compensation plans in a pay-for-performance system, according to a recent study published in Trauma Surgery & Acute Care Open.
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Here’s Where to Go for a ‘Higher Quality’ Review of Your Doctor originally appeared on usnews.com
