HealthContentAdvisors

Consumer-Driven Health Care Drives Demand for Ratings

• Posted May 8th 2008
• by Janice

The proliferation of doctor ratings sites continues unabated and is likely to continue. The two main drivers of growth are both related to the consumer-directed healthcare movement: 1) the demand for information about healthcare providers from consumers/patients and 2) the focus on measuring quality and satisfaction in healthcare. 

The recent traffic records achieved by Castle Connolly, the publishers of the “Top Doctor” guides, during their promotion of “Long Island’s Top Doctors” on Newsday.com demonstrates the strong demand for the data.  Searches for doctors profiles in the database (accessible via Newsday) resulted in over 1.2 million profile views on just one day.   

On the quality and satisfaction front, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a division of HHS, has led efforts to compile standardized ratings of healthcare providers and practitioners through their Consumers Assessment of Health Providers and Systems (CAHPS) program.  CAHPS originally measured satisfaction with health plans, but has branched out into measuring patient satisfaction with hospitals, and has begun  measuring satisfaction with physicians through the CAHPS Clinician and Group survey.  The availability of the CAHPS Clinician survey benchmark data (beginning Spring 2009) may spur even more entrants into the doctor ratings business, but it should also raise the bar for the quality of the ratings sites that survive in this competitive field.