On Examiner.com we rate many things from restaurants, to movies, to books, musical releases and electronic gadgets. Why not your physician? Because, some doctors say, the sites that do this are unreliable due to the limitations of patient comments that don’t always focus on the important aspects of a medical practice. Some docs apparently are not convinced their customer service should be rated, and others say patients aren’t qualified to comment on their medical skills.

Across the pond, United Kingdom physicians are known to be poor judges of their patients’ office experience, says Neil Bacon, founder of IWantGreatCare.com, also in the UK. He thinks “key clinical measures and outcomes are related to patient satisfaction.” In other words, a congenial staff and office atmosphere can be conducive to the healing process. And on the other hand, a disgruntled patient is also more likely to consider mal-practice litigation.

Despite what the medical profession thinks about this idea, the concept is booming with more than 40 Web sites that currently allow patients to rate their doctor, according to iHealthBeat.org. Two of the best known are RateMDs.com and Angieslist.com, both of which get thousands of hits daily for information about physicians. I checked my Phoenix docs out on RateMDs, and got some surprising results. Although five out of six had no comments, one had some pretty serious complaints about customer service, with two that were positive.

Most doctors agree that patients should take a more proactive role in their healthcare, but many aren’t sure patient rating sites are the answer. They argue that it could do damage to a physician’s practice, and some even say it could cause harm to patients. There is some positive reaction, but most is negative. Questions come up repeatedly over the reliability of some comments, and who is to say whether or not they are accurate or simply just a cranky patient.

A company called Medical Justice has developed a document that doctors can use to retain the rights to anything the patient says about him or her. This allows them to go to the patient’s ISP and scream copyright infringement. In other cases physicians are just asking their patients to sign an agreement that they won’t make derogatory comments. Some medical professionals even frown on this approach.

There is a charge for Angieslist of $5.95 per month with a signup fee of $10.00. For this there are a number of benefits touted such as live call center support, access to a complaint resolution team, and discounts from service companies. You can contact them by telephone or e-mail. This site does not allow anonymous comments. RateMDs is free, as many others are, and does allow anonymous comments except under certain circumstances, and it is easy to use. They offer a public online forum for discussions, and have a detailed FAQ section. You can contact RateMDs only by e-mail.

To find more sites, just Google “physicians rating sites.” There are more than enough to help you decide if this is a viable approach to finding a doctor or just checking on the one you have.

For more info: 

HealthBeat Physicians Ratings 

HealthBeat Physicians Question Accuracy