Recent studies show that more people are using online rating
sites to help them make choices about their doctors. There are clearly many
benefits of this: patients can chose the best doctor for the job by finding
doctors with high ratings in addition to steering clear of those with abysmally
low ratings. Sites offer great additional services (other than the basic rating
out of some number and the personal written accounts from patients) such as
detailing the insurance policies and rates of the doctors. Reviews can even
explain the pros and cons of specific procedures/testing that a particular
doctor offers.
On the other hand, these sites, when unregulated, can be
unfair and reviews can be dishonest. Dishonest reviews are not confined to
medical reviews, and there have been many accounts of rival businesses,
disgruntled former employees, etc., writing negative reviews despite the false
personae they take on. There is little to no way to combat this, and some
websites themselves are quite shady with their policies—displaying only some
reviews and asking the person whose business the page is about to pay money to
display all the reviews on the first page. Personally, I find that to be
egregious. When the system isn’t helping customers find the best service
available and becomes another incarnation of “Rate My Teacher,” then I have to
say there needs to be some reform in these systems.
When a bad online review about a doctor is clearly the result of a “shoot
the messenger” scenario, some turn to "Reputation Defender" reputationdefender.com. This site is
also gaining popularity. This site allows for some of this type of damage to be
contained. Still, when a bad review is one of only a few on a doctor’s page, it
can be incredibly damaging. Sometimes it is deserved, but there are too many
cases when it is not deserved for this issue to continue to be ignored.
What are your thoughts on this issue? What are other
solutions? Is this just a good way for the internet to help the free market
improve—medical competition heightened to some degree? Or is this system too
flawed and need some way to hold people accountable for the anonymous reviews
they post?
5 comments:
There’s something indescribably tricky about these sorts of websites. The “wisdom of crowds” can be helpful in many situations, but it doesn’t work well for judging people based on criteria which are different from person to person. I can understand that if a doctor is undeniably rude or makes many mistakes, people should know before they pay to see such a doctor. But as you said, it tends to become another Rate My Teacher, with unreasonable scores being given for unsubstantiated or invalid reasons. And of course it doesn’t help that most websites of this nature are corrupt (with Yelp being a fairly common example of this).
I doubt there can ever be any real solutions to this; websites of this nature work decently in theory, but they become a force of foolishness when put into practice. Anyone who goes onto something like Rate My Teacher will undoubtedly find fault with the rating system (many of my favorite teachers have a quality level of below 60%), and I’m sure it’s the same for the doctor rating websites. It’s better to just find out for yourself.
On a completely unrelated note, are the two people in the image meant to be Captain Picard and Commander Riker from Star Trek...? I’m I the only one who still watches that show? Alright then...
When it comes to these types of rating websites or any website that allows users to self review without any limit viewers need to be aware of what they can be viewing. Whether it maybe rivals reviewing, or even the person rating themselves, often extremely high or low reviews can be a little suspicious. One needs to take into account what the reviewer actually says, and not just the one out of five stars or five out of five.
Also I feel like when someone doesn't like their teacher or maybe even doctor they feel more inclined to belittle them. And becoming anonymous with the ability to judge someones job or character can be attractive. So beware !
What is Star Trek? Just kidding.... I saw the movies..
To use statistical language, these reviews are not random samples. They are not even representative samples. Usually the reviews are by people who had particularly good or bad experiences, were asked by the doctor to write a recommendation, or are just particularly avid reviewers. So the reviews may not reflect the population at large.
However, some information is better than no information. Right? Well not if the information is wrong. I think reviews are here to stay, but we need to read them with a grain of salt.
On a side note, one of the frustrating things to me about reviews is the cacophony of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. This is not the case of all reviews (and I haven't read doctor reviews). However, one of my pet peeves is when scathingly negative book reviews have bad grammar. We all make grammar mistakes, I certainly do, but I don't like how on the Internet it is okay to be sloppy.
If I made any proofreading errors in this comment, they were of course intentional.
Sorry Brendan, I only watched the original series, not next gen (yet!), but I gotchu.
I agree with Brianne, people should take online reviews with a grain of salt. And I think most people do. Personally, when switching to my current eye doctor a few years ago, I actually looked up online reviews on Yelp. I knew they were unreliable and yada yada yada, but I still just wanted to just see the reviews. Because I have always researched reviews on things, ever since I reached the age where I had to make my own decisions and buy my own things. The optometrist received amazing reviews, and was as pleasant as described in the reviews when I met her at my first appointment. Yelp did not disappoint that time. But I do disagree with Yelp on some things. That's between me and Yelp though.
But again, I don't think people actually trust reviews 100% of the time. They may use it as one factor in their decisions on where to go, but in the end, I think most people (like me) would prefer to try it out for themselves before dismissing or deciding on a doctor.
Like Jackie, I also use online ratings for certain things. If it wasn't for Yelp, I wouldn't have discovered my favorite Chinese restaurant. However, when it comes to reviews on doctors, I wouldn't trust them so much. I feel there will never be a perfect regulation of online reviews. Like previously said, there may be other intents besides being informative that may taint the reviews. There may be a way for only registered or certified doctors to offer reviews, but that will get complicated. I'd like to think doctors were recommended honestly, but I know that competition will hinder that.
I think there are other ways to get reviews or recommendation besides using the internet. I usually use doctor recommendation for other doctors, or ask people I know that could recommend me a doctor. Reviews will always be subjective, so I think there will never be a fair way to get reviews on doctors.
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