Patients’ ratings of doctors

Re: [“The Rating Room,” May 19], the idea of having patients rate doctors is superficially attractive, but it isn’t clear whether this trend will improve health. Even if such judgments are valid, they may not necessarily prove helpful.

Patients who need emergency care can’t use them. In areas where there’s a physician shortage, such ratings will merely create a larger pool of frustrated patients with the ability to identify top-notch physicians who have closed their practices to newcomers.

Experiments deserve to continue. But there’s a need to know how reliable such ratings are and whether providers will improve behavior in response.

Jim Jaffe

Center for the Advancement of Health

Washington, D.C.

As an ob-gyn, I can give examples from my point of view. Patients rate you lower for many nonmedical reasons -- when they don’t get what they want or perceive they “need.” Examples are “I want another [medically unnecessary] ultrasound to see the baby,” or “I want a CA-125 to rule out ovarian cancer,” a test generally felt to be worthless as a screening test. Or, “I want the latest [more expensive] drug I saw advertised on the TV,” stemming from the bad policy of direct-to-patient advertising.

Arthur A. Fleisher II MD

Northridge

Online opinions of physicians should be taken with a grain of salt and should certainly not be a patient’s sole source of information when looking for a new physician. Ask trusted family and friends, visit the American Medical Assn.’s DoctorFinder, check with local hospitals or contact the state medical society.

William G. Plested MD

Immediate past president American Medical Assn. Chicago, Ill.