An Analysis of Online Evaluations on a German Physician Rating Website
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Abstract
Background:
Physician rating websites (PRW) have been gaining in popularity among patients when seeking a physician. However, little evidence is available about the number, distribution or trend of evaluations on PRWs. Furthermore, there is no published evidence available analyzing the rating patients and their characteristics.
Objective:
In this context this paper adds to the literature by presenting an analysis of all physician evaluations which had been posted on the German PRW jameda in 2012. Thereby, we provide descriptive analysis regarding (1) both physician and patient characteristics and (2) the number, distribution and results of ratings. Analytical statistics were applied to assess (3) the impact of physician and patient characteristics on the overall performance measure, and (4) the correlation between the number of ratings per patient/physician and the overall performance.
Methods:
Data from the German PRW jameda from 2012 was analyzed and contained 127,192 ratings of 53,585 physicians from 107,148 patients. Information included medical specialty and gender of the physician, gender, age and health insurance status of the patient as well as the results of the physician ratings. Statistical analysis was carried out using the median-test and Kendall tau-b test.
Results:
Thirty-seven percent of all German physicians have been rated on jameda in 2012. Nearly half of the physicians were rated once, less than 2% were rated more than ten times (mean number of ratings 2.37, SD 3.17). About one third of all rated physicians were female. Rating patients were mostly female (60%), between 30-50 years (51%), and covered by Statutory Health Insurance (83%). A mean of 1.19 evaluations per patient could be calculated (SD 0.778). Most rated medical specialties are orthopedists, dermatologists, and gynecologists. Two third of all ratings can be assigned to the best category “very goodâ€. Female physicians have significant better ratings than their male colleagues (p<.001). Additionally, significant rating differences exist between medical specialties (p<.001). It could further be shown, that older patients give better ratings than their younger counterparts (p<.001). The same is true for patients covered by private health insurance which give more favorable evaluations than patients covered by statutory health insurance (p<.001). There could not be detected any significant rating differences between female and male patients (p=.505). The likelihood of a good rating was shown to increase with a rising number of both physician and patient ratings.
Conclusions:
Our findings are mostly in line with those published for PRWs from the US. It could be shown that most ratings are positive and differences exist regarding socio-demographic characteristic of both physicians and patients. The increasing usage of PRWs might contribute to reducing the lack of publicly available quality information. However, it remains unclear whether PRWs have the potential to reflect the quality of care of a health care provider. Further research should assess more in detail the motivation of patients who rate their physicians online.
Physician rating websites (PRW) have been gaining in popularity among patients when seeking a physician. However, little evidence is available about the number, distribution or trend of evaluations on PRWs. Furthermore, there is no published evidence available analyzing the rating patients and their characteristics.
Objective:
In this context this paper adds to the literature by presenting an analysis of all physician evaluations which had been posted on the German PRW jameda in 2012. Thereby, we provide descriptive analysis regarding (1) both physician and patient characteristics and (2) the number, distribution and results of ratings. Analytical statistics were applied to assess (3) the impact of physician and patient characteristics on the overall performance measure, and (4) the correlation between the number of ratings per patient/physician and the overall performance.
Methods:
Data from the German PRW jameda from 2012 was analyzed and contained 127,192 ratings of 53,585 physicians from 107,148 patients. Information included medical specialty and gender of the physician, gender, age and health insurance status of the patient as well as the results of the physician ratings. Statistical analysis was carried out using the median-test and Kendall tau-b test.
Results:
Thirty-seven percent of all German physicians have been rated on jameda in 2012. Nearly half of the physicians were rated once, less than 2% were rated more than ten times (mean number of ratings 2.37, SD 3.17). About one third of all rated physicians were female. Rating patients were mostly female (60%), between 30-50 years (51%), and covered by Statutory Health Insurance (83%). A mean of 1.19 evaluations per patient could be calculated (SD 0.778). Most rated medical specialties are orthopedists, dermatologists, and gynecologists. Two third of all ratings can be assigned to the best category “very goodâ€. Female physicians have significant better ratings than their male colleagues (p<.001). Additionally, significant rating differences exist between medical specialties (p<.001). It could further be shown, that older patients give better ratings than their younger counterparts (p<.001). The same is true for patients covered by private health insurance which give more favorable evaluations than patients covered by statutory health insurance (p<.001). There could not be detected any significant rating differences between female and male patients (p=.505). The likelihood of a good rating was shown to increase with a rising number of both physician and patient ratings.
Conclusions:
Our findings are mostly in line with those published for PRWs from the US. It could be shown that most ratings are positive and differences exist regarding socio-demographic characteristic of both physicians and patients. The increasing usage of PRWs might contribute to reducing the lack of publicly available quality information. However, it remains unclear whether PRWs have the potential to reflect the quality of care of a health care provider. Further research should assess more in detail the motivation of patients who rate their physicians online.
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