Doctor or Therapist Review Sites
There is a wide variety of internet review sites on Doctors and Therapist. These sites differ greatly and offer different information. Unfortunately these sites can not always be a reliable source of information. While they do offer information on doctors and therapist the reviews can be very subjective. Further practitioners can easily write favorable reviews for themselves and post them on these sites. Due to this descripency we should hold off on placing any reviews and their links on the Doctor/Therapist page.
Trisha Torrey of About.Com wrote an article on September 19th, 2009 that outlines the problems with internet review sites and focuses on several major sites. Some of her reviews of these sites are:
Find Doctors (Directory Site)
Little or no help for patients can be found here since its only intent is to bring in advertising revenue. Here's a quote from it's About Us page, "We are a group of web developers located (sic) that believe the internet should be a source of free information. We try to organize the information on the internet within our expertise for the ease of public use. Important Information about the Doctors Data on this Site The doctor database used on this site was licensed from another company. We try our best to ensure the accuracy of the information. However, the data maybe outdated due to the date and the method of the collection. Please use selectively." Patients - be selective enough to go elsewhere.
Vitals.com (Ratings Site)
This site provides an interesting review of doctors not found on other sites. It uses an algorithm to determine ratings of med schools and hospital affiliations for each doctor. Neither DWM or JA were found. That's a positive. LM was found, meaning DOs are listed. Questions asked of patients are quite subjective, including courteous staff? bedside manner? You may not have the same tolerance as those who reviewed. Use Vitals.com for the basics. You will need to use an extended search for malpractice information.
Rate MDs (Ratings Site)
A review of the four doctors at Rate MDs reveals that those should not be there, aren't. The two doctors who should be there, are. This site has the most individual patient ratings, and may be most helpful if you are looking for them. Keep in mind that too few ratings or too many ratings can't give you an honest picture. Also, these ratings are entirely subjective because they are simply personal preferences. This site does not provide board certification information which you'll have to find elsewhere. Also, since it simply links to state records where the doctor practices, you'll need to look further if you are hoping to uncover malpractice information.
Trisha Torrey's article can be viewed in its entirety at http://patients.about.com/od/doctorinformationwebsites/tp/mdwebsiteratings.htm
Source: Torrey, Trisha. Reviews of Physician Directories and RatingsWebsites. September 19, 2009. Found at http://patients.about.com/od/doctorinformationwebsites/tp/mdwebsiteratings.htm
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