Satisfied patients more likely to leave online review

If patients have taken the time to leave a review about a physician online, there's a strong likelihood that doctor has a good reputation offline, a study shows.

Researchers from the University of Maryland and the University of Minnesota conducted a study that identified two biases associated with online physician ratings: Doctors who are rated tend to be those with good reputations in offline patient satisfaction surveys, and the opinions most likely expressed are from people who had good experiences.

For the study, researchers reviewed 1,513 doctors with completed offline surveys conducted by the consumer advocacy group Consumer's Checkbook and 696 physicians with online reviews posted on RateMDs.com, an aggregator of online ratings. They also looked at 2007 economic census data to gather information about the population and income of the area where the physicians practice and examined state medical board data on physician education, experience, specialties and certifications.

The findings were presented at a June health care conference in Quebec sponsored by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.

Report co-author Jeffrey McCullough, PhD, assistant professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota, said the most significant thing physicians should know about the research is that online rating sites "are not a venue where disgruntled patients are complaining."

"Those rated online are those who are preferred [by patients] in offline ratings," he said.

Study co-author Ritu Agarwal, PhD, doesn't think that patients who go online to rate physicians necessarily are aware of their doctor's offline ratings. But there's a strong correlation between good offline reviews and the likelihood the physician will be rated online, said Agarwal, professor and dean's chair of information systems at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.

What the ratings lack are good measures for clinical quality.

"These online ratings aren't as bad as many people might think," McCullough said. "But we wouldn't want to oversell what this information provides, and it's missing what a lot of consumers ought to really care about."

Physicians should look for additional rating methods that provide clinical quality information that can supplement the online ratings, which tend to focus on the patient experience, he said.

The American Medical Association considered a resolution at its Annual Meeting in June that would have directed the Association to develop ideal criteria for physician rating systems. The resolution did not pass, but the AMA announced the launching of a rating resource at the meeting. The system will be available on the Association's online physician platform, Amagine, and will allow doctors to manage their online profiles and respond to patient satisfaction surveys.