Doctors rated online for patients

By W. Adams
POSTED: Jan. 01, 2003

Call it a twist or a trend, one health care organization is providing a new service to its patients. HealthPartners is a family of nonprofit consumer-governed Minnesota health care organizations. HealthPartners and its related organizations provide health care services, insurance and HMO coverage to nearly 660,000 members. As part of their online services for patients they collect patient satisfaction at doctors' offices and hospitals.

Asking questions such as "Which hospital manages childbirth pain best? How long do you have to wait to see the pediatrician in a particular care network? Who does the best job of immunizing kids?", they post the results on the web to help patients in their selection of care. Thirty-seven private primary care offices were rated in the survey.

Available clinical surveys include quality of diabetes and cholesterol screening and preventive care. Other questions include "Would you recommend this doctor to friends and family", and "What is your overall satisfaction with this doctor?"

Continuing with the general idea of providing information to patients, they also have a list of Top Docs. This is the result of a survey by Minneapolis-St.Paul Magazine asking doctors and nurses to rate specialists. The magazine asked 2500 licensed Twin Cities physicians and 2500 registered nurses, "If you or a loved one needed medical care, to which specialist would you choose to go?" The magazine listed only those specialists listed most often by their colleagues.

HealthPartners contracts surveys independently through Maritz Research, Inc.

Back to NEWS