K. Ashok1, P. Chang2,3 1New York University,New York, NY, USA 2University Of Cincinnati,Surgery,Cincinnati, OH, USA 3Shriners Hospitals For Children-Cincinnati,Cincinnati, OH, USA
Introduction:
Physician rating websites are quickly gaining popularity. Patients are increasingly using online information to read reviews and ratings in order to choose which physician to seek care from. Previous studies have examined the online reputation of primary care specialists. The goal of this investigation is to find how pediatric surgeons in New England are rated and describe the online comments found on the most popular rating websites.
Methods:
HealthGrades.com, RateMDs.com, Vitals.com, UCompareHealthCare.com, and doctors.WebMD.com were chosen from those used in similar studies. The APSA website directory was consulted to find names, locations of operation, and institutions of the 77 pediatric surgeons in New England. The average rating, range, number of ratings, and comments were also logged. The overall number of ratings and weighted averages were calculated. If the doctor did not have any entries on any website, this doctor was excluded from the group averages.
Results:
Vitals.com was the most robust site, with 61 profiles. HealthGrades and UCompareHealthCare were also robust, with 57 and 35 profiles respectively. WebMDs was sparse, with only six ratings. No doctor had any average aggregate ratings below 4 out of 5. However, about one third of the surgeons had at least one rating below 4. 26.0% of the doctors had ratings from 1 to 5, 3.90% had ratings from 2-5, one doctor had a rating of 1, one had ratings from 3-5, and one had ratings from 2.5-5.
Positive comments included "Very professional" and "THE best pediatric surgeon." Negative comments included "arrogant butcher", "wouldn't send a dog to be treated by him."
Conclusions:
Average ratings for the pediatric surgeons were for the most part very high (> 4) on average. However, the average number of ratings was low for the vast majority of surgeons for most of the sites examined. The comments left on the sites tended toward hyperbole but could emotionally affect potential patients seeking information about their prospective surgeon. Pediatric surgeons need to be aware of their online reputation.
