This article discusses a subject near and dear to my heart
especially as I go through this course.
Yes, I’ve been a victim of narcissistic self-googling, initially out of
curiosity but now more or less as an obsessive-compulsive behavior. I’ve seen my ratings online and been fairly
smug until I got a 1 out of 4 star rating.
What?!!! But why? Who was this and what did I, we, do
wrong?! Did I not answer her questions
to her satisfaction? Was she unhappy
with her diagnosis (sometimes patients don’t get that doctors don’t give them
the problems – we just diagnose them)?
Was I running particularly late that day? Did my receptionist give her an
attitude? What?! Why?!
I cannot stand that physicians are rated like steakhouses on
Yelp. It is my steadfast belief that we doctors
get rated based on our bedside manners, and our rating is proportional to how
nice we are and how smoothly our offices run, which have precious little to do
with how well we manage the patient’s issues.
To make the matters even worse, I hear there are doctors who ask
patients to rate them well, some even incentivize patients to do so, and some self-rate,
over and over, to get their scores high.
Once medicine was a revered profession. Now it’s just commerce. And there are charlatans (I suppose there always
were).
What is even worse, is now the quality metrics which affect
payments include patient satisfaction, so if the doctor’s not rated highly,
he/she will not get paid accordingly. In a survey by Emergency Physicians
Monthly, 59% of emergency physicians said patient satisfaction
surveys increased the amount of tests they ordered. In another survey by the South Carolina Medical
Association, nearly half of physicians said that pressure to improve
patient satisfaction led them to inappropriately prescribe antibiotics or
narcotics.
So if websites are virtually useless when it comes to assessing
the doctor’s skills, how does a lay person find “the best doctor” for so-and-so
problem? Find a primary doctor who have mixed reviews, as he/she may actually
provide better care because s/he occasionally says no to patients. And try not to get sick.
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