How Do Patient Opinions Affect Doctor Rating?

There are a wide variety of websites online that offer a compilation of scores that create a doctor rating. Some of the areas included in this evaluation are medical licensure, place of education, years of experience, awards and recognition, society membership, and hospital affiliations. Perhaps the most important area to many patients is the section that includes actual and direct quotes from patients that encountered the doctor in real life situations. A lot of people find this information very helpful in narrowing down a large group of physicians in order to find the one that fits their healthcare needs.

However, patient reviews included in a doctor rating can be a double-edged sword. There are a number of factors that go into a patient review that may make it less valuable than it originally appears on the surface.

One of the factors that can taint a patient doctor rating is the type of person writing the review. If the person does not share your personality traits or outlook on life, their view of the physician may be entirely different from yours. Someone who is uptight and impatient will view the doctor as being consistently late and always making them wait for extended periods of time in the waiting room. While a patient that is more laid back might have nothing but good things to say about the very same doctor. These two patients are writing about the same physician in similar situations, but their doctor rating reviews will be completely opposite. Who do you believe?

Another drawback of including patient reviews in a doctor rating is that situations change on a day-to-day basis. One patient may encounter a doctor on a slow day where he or she is abundantly patient and spends extra time on their complaint. A different patient may meet the exact same doctor on a particularly busy day when the doctor doesn’t have as much time to luxuriously spend on the patient’s problem. Once again, these two reviews will be completely different, but the physician is the same person with the same level of skill and experience. Who do you believe and how do you decide?

As such, it is important to take the results of a doctor rating in context with all other areas of the rating. Instead of focusing on one section alone, such as patient reviews, it would be more helpful to take the patient reviews along with the experience and education. If you are interested in a particular procedure that requires a certain level of skill or expertise, you may want to weight education and experience stronger than patient opinion of bedside manner. The nature and type of the healthcare that you require will probably dictate which areas of a doctor rating are more important. 

Keep all of these things in mind next time you check out a doctor rating and find the right physician for the job.