Online Patient Ratings of Hand Surgeons

Trehan, Samir K.; DeFrancesco, Christopher J.; Nguyen, Joseph; Charalel, Resmi A.; Daluiski, Aaron

doi:10.1016/j.jhsa.2015.10.006

Cited by 68 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…In our study, we manually searched for self-reported patient data from a popular PRW and observed the majority of patient satisfaction scores for ROs to be in the range of great to excellent. These findings are consistent with our previous work regarding high patient satisfaction with ROs on Healthgrades [ 6 ], patient satisfaction literature examining hand surgeon ratings on three PRWs across the country [ 14 ], and literature on primary care physicians, medical specialists, surgical specialists, and obstetricians and gynecologists who practice in Virginia [ 1 ]. Given the current popularity of PRWs, the findings of this study are directly relevant to patients and ROs and can be viewed as additional data in the growing literature surrounding patient satisfaction.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

How Do Patients Rate Their Radiation Oncologists in the Modern Era: An Analysis of Vitals.com

Randhawa

Viqar

Strother

et al. 2018

Cureus

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IntroductionThe popularity of online physician rating websites has risen substantially. These third-party sites have the potential to significantly influence patients’ perception of their healthcare providers. The purpose of this study was to evaluate online ratings of U.S. radiation oncologists (ROs) on Vitals.com, one of the most popular physician rating websites, and the variables that most significantly affect patients’ overall rating (OR) of their ROs. MethodsThe Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Physician Comparable Downloadable File was analyzed to obtain data on all self-identified ROs in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Patient Review Satisfaction Scores (PRSS) that ranged from one (poor) to five (excellent) for the following variables were recorded: OR, accurate diagnosis, spending appropriate time with patients, ease of appointment, courteous staff, bedside manner, follow-up after visit, promptness, and wait time. Associations among these factors were assessed. ResultsOf 4,443 self-identifying Medicare-accepting ROs, 1,797 (40.4%) ROs who had at least one OR rating and at least one written comment were included in this study. The ROs’ mean OR was 4.34 ± 0.2 (median 4; 30% received a score of 5; 78% received a score greater than 4). OR was found to have a strong correlation with accuracy of diagnosis (r = 0.69), bedside manner (r = 0.71), and spends appropriate time with patients (r = 0.69). With the exception of the number of ratings (p = 0.07), physicians with over 10 years of experience showed statistically significant differences in how much better they scored in each of the variables compared to those with less than 10 years of experience (p < 0.01 for each characteristic). Significant differences in OR were also observed between ROs whose wait times exceeded 20 minutes compared to those with wait times less than 10 minutes (p < 0.01) for all internal and external metrics except for the number of ratings (p = 0.42) and number of reviews (p = 0.88)ConclusionPatients are providing high ratings for their ROs on Vitals.com and are more frequently recommending them to friends and family. Given the rise in popularity of third-party physician rating sites, it is important for ROs to understand the various factors that may influence their online ratings.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

How Do Patients Rate Their Radiation Oncologists in the Modern Era: An Analysis of Vitals.com

Randhawa

Viqar

Strother

et al. 2018

Cureus

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“…Previous studies have looked at the online presence of ROs and determined only 21% of ROs have an online rating on third-party physician rating websites, which is low relative to other specialties [ 23 - 24 ]. This study builds upon previous work by using a much larger sample size of ROs, and our findings indicated that 2679/4444 (60%) of all ROs in the CMS database were found to have a review on Healthgrades.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Do Patients Think About Their Radiation Oncologists? An Assessment of Online Patient Reviews on Healthgrades

Prabhu

Randhawa

Clump

et al. 2018

Cureus

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IntroductionAn increasing number of patients search for their physicians online. Many hospital systems utilize Press-Ganey studies as internal tools to analyze patient satisfaction, but independent third-party websites have a large presence online. Patients’ trust in these third-party sites may occur despite a low number of reviews and a lack of validity of patients’ entries. Healthgrades.com has been shown as the most popular site to appear on Google searches for radiation oncologists (ROs) in the United States (US). The aim of this study was to analyze patient satisfaction scores and the factors that influence those scores for American ROs on Healthgrades.MethodsThe physician ratings website Healthgrades was manually queried to obtain reviews from all Medicare-participating ROs with reviews (n=2,679). Patient Review Satisfaction Scores (PRSS) were recorded in response to a variety of questions. All information in the survey was scored from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) for the following characteristics: likelihood to recommend (LTR), office environment, ease of scheduling, trust in the physician’s decision, staff friendliness, ability of the physician to listen and answer questions, ability of the physician to explain the condition, and whether the physician spent sufficient time with the patients. Associations amongst these factors were considered by computing Spearman correlation coefficients and utilizing Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests.ResultsThe ROs’ mean LTR score was 4.51±0.9 (median 5.0, 66% received the highest possible score of 5; 95% received a score>2). Patient reviews per RO ranged from 1 to 242 (4.50±0.9, median 2.0). LTR scores correlated very strongly with physician-related factors, ranging from r=0.85 (with appropriate time spent with patients) to r=0.89 (with level of trust in physician). LTR scores were not statistically significantly associated with gender, wait time, ROs’ years since graduation, academic status, or geographic region.ConclusionSatisfaction scores for ROs on a leading physician ratings website are very strong, and most patients leaving reviews are likely to recommend their own ROs to their friends and family. Understanding online ratings and identifying factors associated with positive ratings are important for both patients and ROs due to the recent growth in physician-rating third-party sites. ROs should have increased awareness regarding sites like Healthgrades and their online reputation.

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“…Comparing websites scores of individual sports medicine doctors revealed a low degree of correlation between websites raising concerns about their reliability [ 19 ]. When reviews were correlated with scores, very high and very low ratings were correlated with the patient’s perception of physician skill and quality, which would seem difficult for patients to truly know [ 20 ]. Similarly, Web-based reviews of hand surgeons showed very positive reviews were related to perceived competence [ 21 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Web-Based Physician Ratings for California Physicians on Probation

Murphy¹,

Awad²,

Osterberg³

et al. 2017

J Med Internet Res

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Background Web-based physician ratings systems are a popular tool to help patients evaluate physicians. Websites help patients find information regarding physician licensure, office hours, and disciplinary records along with ratings and reviews. Whether higher patient ratings are associated with higher quality of care is unclear.Objective The aim of this study was to characterize the impact of physician probation on consumer ratings by comparing website ratings between doctors on probation against matched controls.Methods A retrospective review of data from the Medical Board of California for physicians placed on probation from December 1989 to September 2015 was performed. Violations were categorized into nine types. Nonprobation controls were matched by zip code and specialty with probation cases in a 2:1 ratio using the California Department of Consumer Affairs website. Web-based reviews were recorded from vitals.com, healthgrades.com, and ratemds.com (ratings range from 1-5).Results A total of 410 physicians were placed on probation for 866 violations. The mean (standard deviation [SD]) number of ratings per doctor was 5.2 (7.8) for cases and 4 (6.3) for controls (P=.003). The mean rating for physicians on probation was 3.7 (1.6) compared with 4.0 (1.0) for controls when all three rating websites were pooled (P<.001). Violations for medical documentation, incompetence, prescription negligence, and fraud were found to have statistically significant lower rating scores. Conversely, scores for professionalism, drugs or alcohol, crime, sexual misconduct, and personal illness were similar between cases and controls. In a univariate analysis, probation was found to be associated with lower rating, odds ratio=1.5 (95% CI 1.0-2.2). This association was not significant in a multivariate model when we included age and gender.Conclusions Web-based physician ratings were lower for doctors on probation indicating that patients may perceive a difference. Despite these statistical findings, the absolute difference was quite small. Physician rating websites have utility but are imperfect proxies for competence. Further research on physician Web-based ratings is warranted to understand what they measure and how they are associated with quality.

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Online Patient Ratings of Hand Surgeons

Abstract: Understanding hand surgeon online ratings and identifying factors associated with positive ratings are important for both patients and surgeons because of the recent growth in physician-rating Web sites.

Cited by 68 publications

References 19 publications

How Do Patients Rate Their Radiation Oncologists in the Modern Era: An Analysis of Vitals.com

How Do Patients Rate Their Radiation Oncologists in the Modern Era: An Analysis of Vitals.com

What Do Patients Think About Their Radiation Oncologists? An Assessment of Online Patient Reviews on Healthgrades

Web-Based Physician Ratings for California Physicians on Probation

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