{"id":12232,"date":"2016-03-06T12:10:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-06T12:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.accessrx.com\/blog\/?p=29"},"modified":"2009-03-06T12:10:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-06T12:10:00","slug":"trashing-your-doctor-are-online-reviews-garbage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edrugstore.com\/blog\/current-health-news\/trashing-your-doctor-are-online-reviews-garbage\/","title":{"rendered":"Trashing Your Doctor: Are Online Patient Reviews Garbage?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Trashing
Trashing Your Doctor: Are Online Patient Reviews Garbage.<\/figcaption><\/figure>Some doctors — actually, about 2,000 of them — are now asking their patients to sign a waiver before treatment is given. <\/p>\n

The waiver states that a patient will not write negative online reviews about the doctor.<\/p>\n

As far as I’m concerned, this “no-trash” waiver should be thrown right\u00a0in the garbage.\u00a0Even if you\u00a0buy into the fact that online doctor reviews\u00a0lack authority as a\u00a0bona fide resource, how can a doctor (or anyone for that matter) expect someone\u00a0to give\u00a0up their first-amendment rights?<\/p>\n

How many\u00a0Americans are such deprecators of democracy that they\u00a0would sign\u00a0this waiver (only about 3 percent of those surveyed according to one source)? Imagine, for instance, if you signed this waiver and then the doctor\/specialist diagnosed you with cancer – and you did not have cancer. Would online communication not be one of the vehicles you would like to use\u00a0to share this important information? (Hell) yes!<\/p>\n

This brings up another\u00a0relevant question: \u00a0Why\u00a0is the online review of a doctor to be treated any different than the online review of\u00a0your local restaurant? Can a doctor make the case that negative online comments are any\u00a0more important to him, or disparaging to him, than to the average\u00a0professional – whoever that is?<\/p>\n

If anything, would the American consumer\u00a0not be more concerned about, or potentially affected by, the\u00a0unacceptable behaviors and practices of his physician, rather than the tartness of the apple turnover at\u00a0Joe’s? You would think so. And, when it comes down to it, the loss of business is the loss of business –\u00a0no matter your profession, it is harmful.<\/p>\n

Having said that, I agree with the American Medical Association, which recommends that consumers take online medical reviews with a grain of salt. Some people can fly off the handle pretty quickly if the paint scheme in the physician’s waiting room is off kilter.\u00a0They could\u00a0storm off and write a bad review based on that, or perhaps a 20-minute wait, or the fact the doctor did not smile at them when\u00a0entering the room, etc.<\/p>\n

As Chris Matyszczyk so humorously noted in his blog item<\/a> yesterday, the people who are writing the reviews “may possibly be scorned lovers, mad people in pink tights or, who knows, rival intoxicated physicians, rather than\u00a0real patients.”<\/p>\n

You just never know – which is exactly the viewpoint\u00a0that KevinMD.com<\/a> took\u00a0in its recent blog on doctor review sites.<\/p>\n

It seems the point here is that doctor review sites may be fine to use as a point of reference. But when selecting a personal physician or specialist,\u00a0do different kinds of research — talk to a doctor you trust for a referral, contact medical boards to see if any actions or reprimands have been taken against the doctor, ask friends\/co-workers\/acquaintances if they have recommendations, etc. Perhaps the doctor\u00a0would be willing to speak or meet with you to answer questions before your initial visit.<\/p>\n

Until J.D. Power or Consumer Reports start to rate doctors, and until the Wellpoint\/Anthem\/Zagat<\/a> programs permeate America<\/a> (a recent New York Times article points out that Wellpoint\/Anthem doctor reviews have been rolled out to two million WellPoint and Anthem members in southern California, Ohio and Connecticut, as well as 3.7 million Blue Cross and Blue Shield customers in North Carolina that aren\u2019t affiliated with Anthem or WellPoint), we are stuck with what we have, including online reviews.<\/p>\n

Even if you don’t believe in the online review system, it certainly makes no sense to sign away your rights.<\/p>\n

If you’re curious about some of the websites that provide doctor reviews, here is a gaggle of them.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.healthgrades.com<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.vitals.com<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.findadoc.com<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.drscore.com<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.physicianreports.com
\nhttp:\/\/www.ratemds.com
\nhttp:\/\/www.yelp.com
\nhttp:\/\/www.angieslist.com<\/a><\/p>\n

There is a\u00a0company that\u00a0doctors pay to track down negative online comments, and to provide\u00a0the “no-trash” waivers mentioned above. You can find them mentioned all over the Internet – Medical Justice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And thanks to ePharmaSummit<\/a> for raising\u00a0this\u00a0issue in its blog. They cited a very interesting article from ABC News<\/a> that provides an insightful overview of this topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some doctors — actually, about 2,000 of them — are now asking their patients to sign a waiver before treatment is given. The waiver states that a patient will not write negative online reviews about the doctor. As far as I’m concerned, this “no-trash” waiver should be thrown right\u00a0in the garbage.\u00a0Even if you\u00a0buy into the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_autoblog_aioseo_focus_keyphrase":"","_autoblog_aioseo_title":"","_autoblog_aioseo_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-health-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t