What falling ratings mean for physicians in practice

One of the most soul-damaging events for a physician is being sued by a patient with a bad outcome - particularly when the physician cannot think in hindsight how he or she would have done anything differently. I've witnessed the enduring and confidence-shaking psychological trauma up close and personal in physician clients, friends and colleagues!

Another potentially disturbing trend, described in the LA Times a few weeks back in an article titled "Doctor ratings: Is your healthcare hot or not?", is that of public ratings of physicians and their practices. 

Or should we say in some cases public beratings!

"Patients and site operators say the trend is good for consumers and good for healthcare. Thoughtful doctors, they say, will provide better customer service because of the feedback, and the bad ones will no longer be able to hide. And, they add, why should doctors be immune from the trend toward better customer service?

Physicians aren't so sure of such reasoning. Many say the reviews on RateMDs.com, Vitals.com, DrScore.com and other sites are skewed by disgruntled patients and are thus unfair, pushing some doctors to near-ruin after a single post."

The article goes on to debate the rights of patients as consumers to know who they are entrusting their care to (valid point) versus the challenge physicians face when they are criticized unfairly (in their minds) and unable to vent back, for fear of violating patient privacy rights.

I wrote previously about how Zagat has teamed up with Wellpoint to create a physician rating system.

Are these broken solutions for a broken system?

I was glad to see mention made of Medical Justice, a NC company started by Dr. Jeff Segal, whom I had interviewed almost two years ago, when his company was getting off the ground, for Conversations with Trailblazers.

To protect himself, Fischel recently signed up for services with Medical Justice, a Greensboro, N.C., company that provides doctors with contracts and services to guard against frivolous malpractice lawsuits. Last year, the company designed a contract doctors can use asking their patients to "respect their physician's privacy on the Internet" by not participating in online ratings.

If a contract is in place beforehand, a doctor can force a website to take down the offending material, says Dr. Jeffrey Segal, a physician who runs the company.

To a doctor, reputation is everything, Segal says, adding that doctors shouldn't bear the brunt of dissatisfaction with the faltering healthcare system.

"All stakeholders -- consumers, doctors and payers -- are frustrated right now," Segal says. "Because of that there is a lot of finger-pointing and a lot of anger, some of which is unproductive."

(Emphasis mine)

Bravo again to Dr. Segal for standing up for physicians whose professional lives are thrown into turmoil by recognized bad outcomes and frivolous suits.

And by the way, who is taking responsibility of ensuring the fairness and objectivity necessary to make these rating systems useful?