Rate Your M.D. on, well... RateMDs.com

RateMDs.com collects patient ratings on more than 16,500 doctors in the U.S. and the database is growing daily. The "Overall Quality" of a doctor is rated on a scale from 1 to 5.

According to the website director of public relations: "doctors are often unhappy with what we are doing, but patients approve almost unanimously, as evidenced by the steadily increasing website traffic by 10% per month"

RateMDs.com, which bills itself as the Internet's largest free listing of physician ratings, was founded in March 2004.

Using RateMDs.com is free, the website owners make money from the AdSense ads at the top of the page.

MSSP Nexus Blog also writes about RateMDs.com:

"The potential for abuse is obvious given that posters may remain anonymous.

I looked up a couple of different physicians I know, one rated positively one negatively; and I have to say that the comments accurately reflected my personal views and experience.

This site, or others like it that follow, will no doubt begin to be checked as part of a routine credentialing process, so the implications to healthcare providers are considerable."

RateMDs.com gets 1 million visitors per month, and has been growing at 50-100% each year since it was started in 2004.

If a doctor ends up with a total of 25 or more ratings — which is considered "suspicious activity" on the site — users who want to rate that doctor are forced to log in.

Comments from Twitter:

@DrVes: Only 12% of adults have "consulted" online rankings or reviews of physicians http://goo.gl/4binq

@vara411 (Dan Ramirez): They're too fragmented and many require "pay to play." But Google Places and CitySearch have growing collections of reviews.

@DrVes: When you "google" the majority of doctors the first few results are review sites - not their practice site, etc. Not optimal.

@vara411 (Dan Ramirez): Agreed. Though I'm not sure safeguards are in place to protect physicians from slander.

References:

When the Doctor Is in, but You Wish He Weren't - NYTimes
Analysis of 4,999 Online Physician Ratings: most patients gave positive reviews (2011 study) http://goo.gl/LgG5L - It begs the question: couldn't researchers add 1 more for a round number 5,000?
Sites Offering Data, Reviews of Doctors - WSJ
RateMDs.com Receives its 10,000th Doctor Rating - emediawire.com
Doctor rating with an attitude. Notes from Dr. RW.
As Angry Patients Vent Online, Doctors Sue to Silence Them - WSJ.
Googling Ourselves — What Physicians Can Learn from Online Rating Sites. NEJM, 2010.

A plastic surgeon has positive online reviews. But not from that patient who died. SF Weekly, 2010.

"Doctors putting clauses in the forms that you sign saying you won't publish bad reviews on blogs, review sites, etc."

Is That Review a Fake? Cornell University develops algorithm that finds deceptive hotel/product online reviews http://goo.gl/9mdCD
"If a patient bashes a physician on rating websites there is little that doctor can do", says Medscape, 2012.
Image source: RateMDs.com.