Examining Doctor Reviews

No matter how healthy you are, at some point, you are going to need to go a physician – for stitches from a household accident, for a sprain from a weekend warrior sports contest or for a flu bug that you just can't shake. Reading doctor reviews ahead of time can help you choose the right one.

For individuals without an MD or someone needing a specialist beyond the experience of their general family practitioner, picking a physician to go to can be a daunting task. Everyone has different criteria. Some people can't stand sitting in a waiting room. For others, it is the scheduling of a convenient appointment that carries the most weight. You can ask a family member or friend for advice on a physician to see, but again, there is no guarantee that what he or she values in an MD is the same thing you value.

Plus, you don't get to read the paper or read through local news on the Web every day. How do you know that some major lawsuit involving your physician hasn't been filed? That he or she hasn't been sanctioned by a board overseeing the medical community?

Enter doctor reviews, where patients can see what a host of individuals are saying about medical professionals. Ratings often rank doctors in several areas, such as “ease of scheduling appointments” and “courtesy of staff.” You can see what not just one person says about the physician, but what several people say about him or her and just where that MD ranks in the categories most important to you. If location is important to you, check out where doctors in your town rank highest in the areas that matter most to you.

By reading up on what others have said about the physician you are considering, you can make a more informed decision about whether he or she is right for you instead of simply picking a name out of the telephone book and hoping it is a good fit.

Doctor reviews often provide information on awards and honors that he or she has received, the doctor's medical background and how their peers in the medical field feel about their work.

Most review sites also have information about insurance the physician accepts and office hours, so you can make the most informed decision possible. But it is the patient ratings that can have the most impact on the decision to visit a certain MD. While review sites are not going to allow anonymous individuals to post libelous information about any physician, a number of low rankings from patients will send the message that this may not be the one for you. Can the rankings be skewed by one or two disgruntled patients? Normally not. Well-established review sites are going to have dozens of doctor reviews for a certain MD, so the one of two angry patients should not be able to change the doctor's overall ranking that much. Plus, most sites limit reviewers to only ranking once a month so that angry patients do not skew the results with multiple posts.