How Doctor Ratings Can Be Misleading

Doctor ratings sites give you a chance to check out a clinic before you even make the consultation call. However, they can be misleading. This article shows you how to accurately read them to get the information you need.

Doctor ratings sites give us a great new tool for finding the right physician. In recent years, there have been more and more of these sites popping up. It's now common practice for people to get online and check the clinic out before they go.

Doctor ratings sites help us by giving us a "score" for the doctor left by former patients. Even more importantly, they post comments about the patients, describing how they enjoyed their visit. These sites are very useful, but they can be misleading if you don't know how to read them.

All Fives

Some people, if they liked the service they received, will get onto the doctor ratings site and simply give them all fives. They figure there wasn't any problem, so why not just give them 100%. This is a nice thing to do for the doctor, but it doesn't really help anyone else unless they leave comments describing why it was so wonderful. This is why you should never base your decision on the rating alone.

One Bad Apple

On the other hand, maybe they are a really fantastic physician. If all of their patients gave them all fives, and with good reason, it just takes one grumpy Gus to ruin everything. If one person, who was having a bad day or who is a compulsive complainer, decided to give them a 1 or 0, this will skew the results. The physicians perfect 5 star rating could crash as low as 3. If they've got all good reviews and only one bad one, you might want to read that one and see what it's all about.

Only One Rating

Another problem with doctor ratings sites is that sometimes a physician has only one rating. If they've only been fortunate enough (or unfortunate enough) to have one person review them so far, that one person decides their entire score. If they gave them the best, they'll have the best score. If they want to, they can give them the worst score. This is why you should always check to see exactly how many reviews they've had before you take the numbers seriously.

No Comment

Regardless of whether they're rated well or rated badly, all of it is meaningless if there are no comments. When using doctor ratings sites, you should never go with the numbers alone. Even if they've consistently gotten high scores or low scores, that's not enough to really tell you anything. Once you've narrowed it down to a few good prospects, read the comments carefully. The user comments are the part that will sometimes give you a "red flag" that lets you know this clinic is not for you. They may also have information that resonates with you and tells you that this is the one. Always read as many comments as you can before making your decision.

If you're going to use doctor ratings sites, they can be very helpful. Just make sure that you know how to read the search results, and take a close look at the comments before you decide.

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