Spring 2019 (Volume 29, Number 1)
Best Rheumatologist or Best-rated
Rheumatologist?
By Philip A. Baer, MDCM, FRCPC, FACR
“I think people make way too much of ratings.”
– Walter Cronkite
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I’ve been mulling this topic for awhile. When RateMDs
first appeared, I paid little attention, but my children did
research it and offered to write me favourable reviews.
What was more interesting was to see what was already
there, without letting this external validation of sorts influence
one’s mood too much, either positively or negatively.
Overall, my ratings were good, reflecting (I think) that I see
one patient at a time, try to run on time, emphasize to my
office staff that we are running a customer service business,
and try to be what the mindfulness gurus call “present” or
“in the moment.” When I first started with an EMR, I had
a negative comment about interacting too much with the
computer. We solved that, at the cost of worse spinal posture,
by rearranging my desk and computer monitors to better
face the patient across my desk; no complaints since.
Another patient left enough clues in a negative review
that I felt fairly confident I knew who had posted the entry.
The main issue seemed to be that I had not found a diagnosable
rheumatic disease. I carefully reviewed the information
provided in the referral request, as well as the test
results and my consult note, not uncovering any concerns.
Validation came when the patient saw another rheumatologist,
who ordered more investigations and copied me on
their letter, also having found no significant disorder.
Dr. James Rosenbaum, an American rheumatologist and
ophthalmologist, highlighted the importance of factors external
to the physician’s competence in a doctor’s ratings.1
He practices in two clinics, one where he is highly-rated
(rheumatology) and one where he is not (ophthalmology).
Dr. Rosenbaum explored factors known to produce negative
physician ratings in American hospital settings: being seen
by a resident versus an attending physician; being seen at
a teaching hospital; and the patient’s diagnosis, with fibromyalgia
patients being less satisfied than those with other
diagnoses. Patients who received tests and prescriptions
which they wanted, even if those were medically inappropriate,
were also more satisfied. With many American physicians
having a portion of their pay based on patient satisfaction,
these issues have become top of mind.
A study published recently in JAMA Internal Medicine
confirmed this reality. This was a cross-sectional study of
1,141 adults making 1,319 office visits to 56 family physicians.
Compared with fulfillment of the respective request
type, denials of requests for referral, pain medication, other
new medication, and laboratory tests were associated with
worse patient satisfaction with the clinician.
In Canada, a recent CBC TV story3and a lead from a
concerned Ontario rheumatology colleague led me to revisit
RATEMDs.com. Amongst the interesting information
online, I found out that the website is owned by Vertical-Scope Inc., which in turn is now owned by Torstar Corp.,
the parent of The Toronto Star newspaper, widely known to
be no friend of physicians. The CBC story discussed what
physicians with negative ratings could do to restore their
reputations. This involved paying online “reputation management”
firms, one of which is RATEMDs itself, a monthly
fee to generate favourable reviews and hide unfavourable
ones, or to push them lower onscreen and out of sight. The
quoted RATEMDs fees for hiding up to three unfavourable
comments range from $179 to $359 US per month. If you
stopped paying the fees, the negative reviews would reappear.
So this appears to be a smokescreen service, rather
than a scrubbing service, with numerous ethical questions
arising.
Meanwhile, back at my office, a rare patient mentions
that they noted I had good online reviews, or that they
wrote one about me. Most are oblivious, or at least not
talking about the matter. Last time I looked, I was holding
steady as either the #2 or #3 top-rated rheumatologist
in Scarborough, for whatever that’s worth. As the #1 rated
rheumatologist is sadly deceased, and likely not going to
accumulate any negative reviews in future, the only direction
my rating can realistically go is down.
References:
1. Rosenbaum JT. A Tale of 2 Physicians. The Rheumatologist, May 2014:8-9.
2. Jerant A et al. Association of Clinician Denial of Patient Requests With Patient Satisfaction. JAMA
Intern Med 2018; 178(1):85-91. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2017.6611
3. Who's rating doctors on RateMDs? The invisible hand of 'reputation management.' Available at
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/ratemds-privacy-reputation-management-1.4880831. Accessed
Oct. 31, 2018.
Philip A. Baer, MDCM, FRCPC, FACR
Editor-in-chief, CRAJ
Scarborough, Ontario
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