Rating a Sports Medicine Surgeon’s “Quality” in the Modern Era: an Analysis of Popular Physician Online Rating Websites

Nwachukwu, Benedict U.; Adjei, Joshua; Trehan, Samir K.; Chang, Brenda; Amoo-Achampong, Kelms; Nguyen, Joseph; Taylor, Samuel A.; McCormick, Frank; Ranawat, Anil S.

doi:10.1007/s11420-016-9520-x

Cited by 57 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…The online presence of orthopedic surgeons has grown substantially, and most surgeons have been rated by their patients on at least one independent website. 17,19,21 Although most overall rat-ings and comments are positive, the number of ratings across all of these websites is low, consistent with the current findings. 17,19,21 Despite the variable quality of these ratings, patient awareness of these websites has grown during the past decade.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…17,19,21 Although most overall rat-ings and comments are positive, the number of ratings across all of these websites is low, consistent with the current findings. 17,19,21 Despite the variable quality of these ratings, patient awareness of these websites has grown during the past decade. [14][15][16] A survey of US patients found that 65% were aware of physician ratings, 35% of those patients had chosen a physician based on good ratings, and 37% had avoided a physician because of negative ratings.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…[14][15][16] A limited number of orthopedic studies have assessed the quality of these online ratings and found weak correlations among the different websites for reported patient satisfaction scores, suggesting significant heterogeneity. [17][18][19][20][21] Despite the recent proliferation of these websites, they have significant limitations, including a low number of patient ratings, a bias toward dissatisfied patients, and a lack of subjective feedback to explain the basis of these ratings. 12 To address these limitations, a number of health care networks have begun to provide publicly available ratings of their physicians derived from patient satisfaction surveys administered by third parties.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Provider-Initiated Patient Satisfaction Reporting Yields Improved Physician Ratings Relative to Online Rating Websites

Ricciardi¹,

B²,

Nodzo³

et al. 2017

Orthopedics

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Recently, providers have begun to publicly report the results of patient satisfaction surveys from their practices. However, these outcomes have never been compared with the findings of commercial online physician rating websites. The goals of the current study were to (1) compare overall patient satisfaction ratings for orthopedic surgeons derived from provider-based third-party surveys with existing commercial physician rating websites and (2) determine the association between patient ratings and provider characteristics. The authors identified 12 institutions that provided publicly available patient satisfaction outcomes derived from third-party surveys for their orthopedic surgeons as of August 2016. Orthopedic surgeons at these institutions were eligible for inclusion (N=340 surgeons). Provider characteristics were recorded from publicly available data. Four high-traffic commercial online physician rating websites were identified: Healthgrades.com, UCompareHealthCare.com, Vitals.com, and RateMDs.com. For each surgeon, overall ratings (on a scale of 1-5), total number of ratings, and percentage of negative ratings were compared between provider-initiated internal ratings and each commercial online website. Associations between baseline factors and overall physician ratings and negative ratings were assessed. Provider-initiated internal patient satisfaction ratings showed a greater number of overall patient ratings, higher overall patient satisfaction ratings, and a lower percentage of negative comments compared with commercial online physician rating websites. A greater number of years in practice had a weak association with lower internal ratings, and an academic practice setting and a location in the Northeast were protective factors for negative physician ratings. Compared with commercial online physician rating websites, provider-initiated patient satisfaction ratings of orthopedic surgeons appear to be more favorable, with greater numbers of responses. [Orthopedics. 2017; 40(5):304-310.].

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

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confidence: 99%

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Provider-Initiated Patient Satisfaction Reporting Yields Improved Physician Ratings Relative to Online Rating Websites

Ricciardi¹,

B²,

Nodzo³

et al. 2017

Orthopedics

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“…The trends observed in our study have also been identified in other medical specialties. In a study of 275 sports medicine surgeons, Nwachukwu et al (19) found surgeon competence and communication to be the main topics for comment inclusion. Additionally, in a large retrospective analysis of Yelp reviews on emergency medicine physicians, communications with doctors and nurses were primary reasons underlying patients leaving comments on online platforms (20).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patients’ Online Perception and Ratings of Neurotologists

Goshtasbi¹,

Lehrich

Moshtaghi

et al. 2019

Otology &Amp; Neurotology

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Objectives: To assess and characterize patients' online ratings and comments of neurotologists and determine factors that correlate with higher ratings. Methods: All the American Neurotology Society members were queried on Healthgrades, Vitals, RateMDs, Yelp, and Google from March to June 2018. All ratings were normalized for comparison on a five-point Likert scale. All comments were categorized based on context and for positive/negative aspect. Results: Of the 560 American Neurotology Society members, 465 (83%) were rated on at least one online platform. Of those rated, 420 (90%) were on Healthgrades, 392 (84%) on Vitals, 283 (61%) on RateMDs, 232 (50%) on Google, and 56 (12%) on Yelp. Across all platforms, the average overall rating was 4.06 AE 0.68 (range: 1.00-5.00). There were significant positive correlations between overall rating and specific ratings (p < 0.01) on individual topics. Moreover, categorizing 5,317 narrative comments elicited the majority to be related to perceived physician bedside manner and clinical outcome. Although the number of positive comments outnumbered the negative ones, only the negative comments correlated (negatively) with the overall score (p < 0.01). Attending a top 25-or 50-medical schools or residency programs did not correlate with their rating. Conclusions: Online ratings and comments for neurotologists are highly dependent on patient perceptions of physician competence, caring bedside manner, and office management. Minimizing the number of negative comments, especially regarding perceived physicians' professionalism and communication, clinical outcome, bedside manners, and office management, leads to higher calculated overall scores and online perception.

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“…Polled physicians are concerned about the usefulness of Web-based ratings and how they could negatively impact their practice [ 18 ]. 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 ].…”

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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Rating a Sports Medicine Surgeon’s “Quality” in the Modern Era: an Analysis of Popular Physician Online Rating Websites

Cited by 57 publications

References 18 publications

Provider-Initiated Patient Satisfaction Reporting Yields Improved Physician Ratings Relative to Online Rating Websites

Provider-Initiated Patient Satisfaction Reporting Yields Improved Physician Ratings Relative to Online Rating Websites

Patients’ Online Perception and Ratings of Neurotologists

Web-Based Physician Ratings for California Physicians on Probation

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