News: JAMA study shows physician reviews on rating websites are few and far between

Nearly 60% of patients say that online reviews matter to them when choosing a physician, according to a study conducted by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 2014. However, the scope and usefulness of those online reviews’ are limited, according to a study conducted by JAMA just last week.

A third of the 600 physicians participating in the study were not reviewed on any of the 28 websites included in the study. On the other hand, if a physician was reviewed on at least one of the sites, they were also reviewed a median of seven times across all 28 websites.

The authors of the study selected a random sample of doctors from Boston, Portland, Oregon, and Dallas. They looked at English-language, publicly available websites which did not require subscriptions, allowed patients to write reviews, and provided search by physician name. They didn’t include sites affiliated with insurance companies, healthcare systems, or those dedicated to a practice specialty, Modern Healthcare reported.

The reviewed sites had a total of 8,133 quantitative reviews of the physicians in the sample, only 1,784 of which had comments associated with the review. Of the reviewed websites, HealthGrades and Vitals had the most median reviews per physician and the most physicians with reviews.

“Commercial physician-rating websites have significant limitations,” the study’s authors wrote. The search function can be especially “cumbersome.” All of the sites in the study allowed users to search by physician name, but only 11% allowed search by language spoken, and only 14% allowed search by sex.

Because the demand for online reviews seems to be growing and the available sites offer such incomplete information, the study’s authors suggest that some other review system—such as the results of patient-experience surveys—may become popular, Modern Healthcare reported.

Editor’s note: To read the original coverage of the JAMA study published in Modern Healthcare, click here. To read the JAMA study in full, click here.