Physician Rating Websites Research Articles

Application of sentiment and word frequency analysis of physician review sites to evaluate refractive surgery care

BackgroundOnline physician reviews increase transparency in health care, helping patients make informed decisions about their provider. Language processing techniques can quantify this data and allow providers to better understand patients' experiences, perspectives, and priorities. The objective of this study was to assess patient satisfaction and understand the aspects of care that are valued by patients seeking refractive care using sentiment and word frequency analysis. MethodsWritten reviews and Star ratings for members of the Refractive Surgery Alliance Society practicing in the United States were collected from Healthgrades, a popular physician rating website. Surgeons with at least one written review were included in the study. Reviews were scored from -1 (most negative) to +1 (most positive) using Valence Aware Dictionary sEntiment Reasoner (VADER). Reviews were stratified by demographic characteristics, namely gender, region, and years in practice. Word frequency analysis was applied to find the most common words and phrases. ResultsA total of 254 specialists and 3104 reviews were analyzed, with an average of 4.4/5 stars and mean 48 ratings each. Most physicians had positive reviews (96%, average VADER ​= ​0.69). Younger physicians (<20 years since residency) had significantly higher Stars rating than senior peers (>20 years) (P ​< ​0.001). A similar trend was observed in VADER score (0.71 vs 0.69), although not statistically significant (P ​= ​0.06). No statistical differences were observed between Stars rating and VADER score by gender (P ​= ​0.66, P ​= ​0.83) or by geographical region (P ​= ​0.74, P ​= ​0.07). "Staff" (n ​= ​1269), "professional" (n ​= ​631), "office" (n ​= ​523), "questions" (n ​= ​424), and "friendly" (n ​= ​386) were frequently used in reviews, along with phrases such as "the staff" (n ​= ​273) and "my questions" (n ​= ​174). "Surgery" (n ​= ​719), "staff" (n ​= ​576), "procedure" (n ​= ​251), "experience" (n ​= ​243), and "professional" (n ​= ​240) were the most common words in positive reviews, while "surgery" (n ​= ​147), "office" (n ​= ​86), "staff" (n ​= ​54), "time" (n ​= ​47), and "insurance" (n ​= ​28) were the most commonly used in negative reviews. ConclusionsBoth the average Stars and VADER sentiment score suggest a high satisfaction among refractive patients. Word frequency analysis revealed that patients value non-clinical aspects of care, including interactions with staff, insurance coverage, and wait-times, suggesting that improving non-clinical factors could enhance patient satisfaction with refractive surgery.

The impact of 1-star physician ratings on new patient volume.

To quantify the impact of 1-star reviews across multiple physician rating websites (PRWs) on new patient volume. Retrospective analysis of 1.12 million new patient appointments and 12,882 physician reviews from a proprietary data set from a large single-specialty practice in the New York and New Jersey area. We compiled new patient appointments scheduled and kept between January 1, 2015, and April 25, 2018, and the reviews of the practice's affiliated physicians from 10 PRWs. Assuming that reviews are read prior to appointment creation, an ordinary least squares regression model was run with a time series analysis to compare patient volume in the period immediately prior to the posting of a 1-star review with patient volume in the period immediately after a 1-star review was posted. An additional sensitivity analysis was performed at 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16 weeks to validate a robust effect. The majority of reviews on PRWs were overwhelmingly positive, with only 6.7% of reviews (n = 733) rating a physician with 1 star. A mean of 6.2 new patient appointments were made per half-day session. The mean new patient volume decreased 2.3% to 2.6% following a 1-star review, with effects of the 1-star review affecting patient volume for at least 16 weeks. Given the limited yet longitudinal negative impact of 1-star reviews and the growing influence of PRWs, physicians should consider the magnitude of the effect as they consider responding to bad reviews.

What Makes a 5-Star Orthopaedic Sports Medicine Surgeon? An Analysis of Positive Online Patient Reviews.

The increased focus on patient satisfaction has led to growth in the use of physician rating websites. To analyze the factors associated with online 5-star patient reviews for orthopaedic sports medicine surgeons. Cross-sectional study. A total of 70 orthopaedic sports medicine surgeons were randomly selected from the AOSSM website. A search was performed for these surgeons on Yelp.com. All reviews other than 5 stars (of a possible 5 stars) were excluded from the study. Each review was categorized as referring to a surgical or nonsurgical aspect of care, and each comment within the review was categorized as being clinically or nonclinically related. Comments were further subcategorized by specific features such as bedside manner, clinical outcomes, and patient education. Categorical variables were analyzed using the chi-square test. Overall, 400 five-star reviews were included in the study, comprising 1225 total positive comments. Of the 400 five-star reviews, 200 (50%) were from surgically treated patients, and 200 (50%) were from nonsurgically treated patients. Of the 1225 positive comments, 505 (41%) were clinically related, and 720 (59%) were nonclinical. The most common positive clinical comments were for clear treatment plans (191 reviews [48%]), good outcomes (173 reviews [43%]), and providing alternative treatment plans (55 reviews [14%]). The most common positive nonclinical comments were for good physician bedside manner (287 reviews [72%]), friendly/professional staff (194 reviews [49%]), and ease of scheduling (68 reviews [17%]). The majority of 5-star patient reviews left positive comments regarding nonclinical aspects of care such as physician bedside manner and friendly staff. The most common positive comments regarding clinical aspects concerned good outcomes and clear treatment plans. The overall most common positive comment, in both surgically and nonsurgically treated patients, referred to good bedside manner.

Doctor selection based on aspect-based sentiment analysis and neutrosophic TOPSIS method

Background:Physician-rating sites have become a convenient platform for patients to choose doctors. However, selecting an appropriate doctor through numerous online reviews is challengeable for patients. Although studies show that patients have different preferences for the aspects of healthcare services, existing doctor ranking methods rarely consider such preference information. Besides, they seldom handle the neutral sentiment information in patient reviews. Methods:To better assist patients in doctor selection, we propose a novel decision-making method that combines aspect-based sentiment analysis, single-valued neutrosophic sets and an extended Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method. The method utilizes Word2Vec to construct a feature dictionary of patient satisfaction. A rule-based approach is employed to extract the aspects and the related sentiments from patients’ text reviews. Moreover, it takes advantage of single-valued neutrosophic sets to address the positive, neutral and negative sentiment information. On this basis, we rank the doctors with an extended TOPSIS method considering the patient’s attitudinal character and the preference information. Results:A case study on a review dataset demonstrates the stability and flexibility of the method. The comparative analysis reveals that our method can efficiently reduce information loss and it is more practical than existing methods. Conclusion:Considering patients’ different preferences for the aspects of healthcare services, the method can better provide healthcare decision support for patients.

Classification of Patients' Judgments of Their Physicians in Web-Based Written Reviews Using Natural Language Processing: Algorithm Development and Validation.

Patients increasingly rely on web-based physician reviews to choose a physician and share their experiences. However, the unstructured text of these written reviews presents a challenge for researchers seeking to make inferences about patients' judgments. Methods previously used to identify patient judgments within reviews, such as hand-coding and dictionary-based approaches, have posed limitations to sample size and classification accuracy. Advanced natural language processing methods can help overcome these limitations and promote further analysis of physician reviews on these popular platforms. This study aims to train, test, and validate an advanced natural language processing algorithm for classifying the presence and valence of 2 dimensions of patient judgments in web-based physician reviews: interpersonal manner and technical competence. We sampled 345,053 reviews for 167,150 physicians across the United States from Healthgrades.com, a commercial web-based physician rating and review website. We hand-coded 2000 written reviews and used those reviews to train and test a transformer classification algorithm called the Robustly Optimized BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) Pretraining Approach (RoBERTa). The 2 fine-tuned models coded the reviews for the presence and positive or negative valence of patients' interpersonal manner or technical competence judgments of their physicians. We evaluated the performance of the 2 models against 200 hand-coded reviews and validated the models using the full sample of 345,053 RoBERTa-coded reviews. The interpersonal manner model was 90% accurate with precision of 0.89, recall of 0.90, and weighted F1-score of 0.89. The technical competence model was 90% accurate with precision of 0.91, recall of 0.90, and weighted F1-score of 0.90. Positive-valence judgments were associated with higher review star ratings whereas negative-valence judgments were associated with lower star ratings. Analysis of the data by review rating and physician gender corresponded with findings in prior literature. Our 2 classification models coded interpersonal manner and technical competence judgments with high precision, recall, and accuracy. These models were validated using review star ratings and results from previous research. RoBERTa can accurately classify unstructured, web-based review text at scale. Future work could explore the use of this algorithm with other textual data, such as social media posts and electronic health records.

A sentiment analysis on online psychiatrist reviews to identify clinical attributes of psychiatrists that shape the therapeutic alliance.

While online reviews from physician rating websites are increasingly utilized by healthcare providers to better understand patient needs, it remains difficult to objectively identify areas for improvement in providing psychiatric care. To quantitatively characterize the sentiment of online written reviews of psychiatrists to determine clinical attributes that can be strengthened to improve psychiatrists' therapeutic alliance with their patients. Sentiment scores of 6,400 written reviews of 400 US-based psychiatrists on a US-based online physician rating website were obtained through a natural-language-processing-based sentiment analysis. Relationships among sentiment scores, average star ratings, and demographics were examined. Linguistic analyses determined words and bigrams that were highly associated with reviews with the most positive and negative sentiment. Sentiment scores were significantly correlated with average star ratings of the psychiatrists (R = 0.737, p < 0.001). Psychiatrists who were younger (< 56 years old) and/or practiced in the Northeast had significantly higher average star ratings than those older and/or practicing in the Southwest. Frequency analysis showed that positive reviews most frequently contained "time" (N = 1,138) and "caring" (N = 784) while negative reviews most frequently contained "medication" (N = 495) and "time" (N = 379). Logistic regression analysis revealed that reviews were more likely to be considered positive when they included "great listener" (OR = 16.89) and "comfortable" (OR = 10.72) and more likely to be negative when they included "meds" (OR = 0.55) and "side effect" (OR = 0.59). Psychiatrists who are younger and located in the Northeast receive more positive reviews; there may be potential for demographic bias among patient reviewers. Patients positively rate psychiatrists who make them feel heard and comfortable but negatively rate encounters centered around medications and their side effects. Our study lends quantitative evidence to support the importance of thorough and empathetic communication of psychiatrists in building a strong therapeutic alliance.

Patient Perceptions and Preferences When Choosing a Surgeon: A Cross-Sectional Study, Qassim Region, Saudi Arabia.

Background The patient-physician relationship is changing, and patients are taking more responsibility in their decision-making. Many patients use the Internet as an important source of information regarding their health. Physician-rating websites provide essential information about the quality of care from patients' perspectives. However, choosing the appropriate healthcare provider is still complicated for any patient. Many patients find choosing a surgeon stressful because they cannot change the treating surgeon once the surgery is underway. Understanding a patient's preferences in choosing the right surgeon is essential to forming a patient-surgeon relationship and shaping practice. Nevertheless, little is known about the factors influencing patients' choices for elective surgeries in the Qassim region. Objectives This study aims to explore factors and the most common manners patients use to reach their appropriate surgeon in the Qassim Region, Saudi Arabia. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among target people over 18 years old in Qassim Region, Saudi Arabia, using a snowball sample study from October 2022 to February 2023. The data were collected online using Google Forms using a self-administered, valid Arabic questionnaire distributed to respondents via WhatsApp, Twitter, and Telegram. The questionnaire consists of two sections: participants' sociodemographic status, including age, gender, nationality, residence, occupation, and monthly income; and a section to evaluate factors influencing patient decision-making when choosing a surgeon for elective surgery. Results The factors that were significantly associated with elective surgery were: gender of the doctor (adjOR = 1.62, 99% CI: 1.29-2.04); age (adjOR = 1.31, 99% CI: 1.13-1.53); gender of the study patient (adjOR = 1.64, 99% CI: 1.28-2.10); nationality (adjOR = 0.49, 95% CI: 0.26-0.88); and employment (adjOR = 0.89, 95% CI: 0.79-0.99). Conclusions The cultural background in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia plays a significant role in influencing gender in the choice of the surgeon for elective surgery. Recommendations from friends and family members play a less significant role in the choice of the surgeon for elective surgery. Patients in employment and pensioners seem to have a significant preference in the choice of surgeon for elective surgery.

The Influence of Paid Memberships on Physician Rating Websites With the Example of the German Portal Jameda: Descriptive Cross-sectional Study.

The majority of Germans see a deficit in information availability for choosing a physician. An increasing number of people use physician rating websites and decide upon the information provided. In Germany, the most popular physician rating website is Jameda.de, which offers monthly paid membership plans. The platform operator states that paid memberships have no influence on the rating indicators or list placement. The goal of this study was to investigate whether a physician's membership status might be related to his or her quantitative evaluation factors and to possibly quantify these effects. Physician profiles were retrieved through the search mask on Jameda.de website. Physicians from 8 disciplines in Germany's 12 most populous cities were specified as search criteria. Data Analysis and visualization were done with Matlab. Significance testing was conducted using a single factor ANOVA test followed by a multiple comparison test (Tukey Test). For analysis, the profiles were grouped according to member status (nonpaying, Gold, and Platinum) and analyzed according to the target variables-physician rating score, individual patient's ratings, number of evaluations, recommendation quota, number of colleague recommendations, and profile views. A total of 21,837 nonpaying profiles, 2904 Gold, and 808 Platinum member profiles were acquired. Statistically significant differences were found between paying (Gold and Platinum) and nonpaying profiles in all parameters we examined. The distribution of patient reviews differed also by membership status. Paying profiles had more ratings, a better overall physician rating, a higher recommendation quota, and more colleague recommendations, and they were visited more frequently than nonpaying physicians' profiles. Statistically significant differences were found in most evaluation parameters within the paid membership packages in the sample analyzed. Paid physician profiles could be interpreted to be optimized for decision-making criteria of potential patients. With our data, it is not possible to draw any conclusions of mechanisms that alter physicians' ratings. Further research is needed to investigate the causes for the observed effects.

Assessing reviews of academic oral and maxillofacial surgeons within the US on Healthgrades.

The purpose of the following study was to explore the patient feedback on academic oral and maxillofacial surgeons (OMSs) practicing in the United States (US) using the physician rating website (PRW) Healthgrades.com. We conducted a retrospective cohort study on academic OMSs in the US using data from Healthgrades.com. Predictor variables included OMS characteristics or rating characteristics. The primary outcome variable was overall rating. Linear regression was used to determine independent predictors of overall rating. The final study sample consisted of 309 academic OMSs (mean age, 56.4 years; males, 86.4%). Age group was significantly associated with overall rating (p = 0.034). Dual-degree OMSs had a higher mean overall rating than single-degree OMSs (4.26 vs. 3.98, p = 0.012). The number of ratings was also significantly associated with overall rating (p = 0.019). Upon controlling for all other variables, merely age group was independently associated with overall rating. Specifically, OMSs aged 41-55 years were associated with a higher overall rating (+0.96, p = 0.022) relative to OMSs aged >70 years. The OPRs on Healthgrades.com for academic OMSs within the US are generally positive. Age was the only independent predictor for overall rating - younger OMSs (aged 41-55 years) were independently associated with a higher overall rating relative to older OMSs (aged >70 years). The new generation of younger OMSs is likely to be aware of PRWs and their implications in the growing world of online exposure.

Poor Online Patient Ratings of Otolaryngologists in the United States: What are Patients Saying?

Online patient forums have become a platform for patient education and advocacy in many areas of medicine. The anonymity provided by such forums may encourage honest, candid responses. Using patient online reviews, this study sought to explore themes that arose from negatively perceived care interactions with American otolaryngologists using the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) competency framework. Qualitative thematic analysis. Through an iterative multistep process, a qualitative thematic analysis was conducted on negative reviews (defined as ratings of two or less out of five) of all American otolaryngologists found on a popular online physician-rating website (RateMDs.com). A systematic search through the RateMDs website revealed 2950 separate comments of negative reviews. Of these negative reviews, 350 were randomly selected for thematic analysis. The predominant themes that emerged aligned closely with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) competencies, in particularly with professionalism and interprofessional skills and communication. The negative reviews of American otolaryngologists revealed a number of areas where improvements could be made to quality of care. Patients value evidence-based medicine delivered by compassionate and respectful physicians. Isolating and aligning predominant themes within the ACGME framework proved a productive method to collect and organize pertinent patient feedback and integrate teaching into the post-graduate training and continuing professional development in order to avoid such negatively perceived interactions in the future.

Awareness of and interaction with physician rating websites: A cross-sectional study in Austria.

To date, the digital assessment of service experiences represents a decisive process step of a feedback culture in numerous economic areas. In view of this digitalization of service assessments, the importance of Physician Rating Websites (PRWs) has also increased steadily in recent years. Even though these websites could be perceived as a powerful communication tool for the exchange of health specific information, the knowledge about whether and how different population segments use these portals has been limited so far. For this reason, our aim was to investigate the level of awareness regarding PRWs among the study population and to discover how users interact with this specific type of online portals. We performed an online survey including 558 participants. To ensure the attention and integrity of participants, attention checks were included in the questionnaire. Study participants who did not exceed the mentioned security levels were excluded from the study. Statistical analyses were carried out, using IBM SPSS Statistics 27. To illustrate the relationship between demographic variables and dependent variables, two tailed chi square tests were performed. Comparison of means and t-testing was used to investigate the relationship between psychographic variables and the dependent variables. In addition to that, the awareness levels regarding different rating portals were evaluated using descriptive methods. Our results suggest that the general awareness regarding PRWs is relatively high (75.6%, 423/558), especially among female (x21 = 9.880, P = .002), middle-aged (x29 = 26.810, P = .002), more highly educated (x24 = 19.038, P = .001), urban (x21 = 6.274, P = .012), digitally literate (t203 = 2.63, P = .009) individuals and particularly among respondents with a higher eHealth literacy (t203 = 2.37, P = .019). Even though more than three quarters of the respondents know that PRWs exist, compared to other rating platforms, they are only in the lower midfield. The upper ranks are taken by websites on which restaurant visits (98.9%, 552/558), hotel stays (97.7%, 545/558) or movies (95.5%, 533/558) can be rated. The most popular PRWs in Austria include Docfinder.at (31.3%, 175/558; 77.8%, 434/558) followed by the evaluation tools provided by Google.at (8.24%, 46/558; 70.3%, 392/558) and Herold.at (1.61%, 9/558; 44.8%, 250/558). In Austria, PRWs seem to be characterized by a high degree of interaction (89.2%, 498/558) with a wide variety of different types of interactions. While many respondents use PRWs to retrieve general information (83.2%, 464/558), there are significantly fewer who read physicians' reviews (60.9%, 340/558) and use this portal to select a physician (60.6%, 338/558). Respondents who have already rated a doctor themselves belong to the smallest group accounting for just 14.7% (82/558). Significant effects regarding the interaction with PRWs exist between different genders, ages, education levels, marital statuses, occupations and areas of living. In addition to that, respondents with better feelings towards the internet, greater digital literacy as well as a higher eHealth literacy were also characterized with a higher interaction rate regarding PRWs. According to the high level of awareness of and interaction with PRWs within our study population, PRWs appear to be a successful medium for health-related communication. Especially for female, middle-aged, more highly educated, urban and more technology savvy population segments, PRWs seem to represent an effective tool to support the health-specific decision-making process.

Analysis of physician characteristics and factors influencing the online recommendation of pediatric orthopaedic surgeons: a cross-sectional study

Background: Physician online reviews are a growing resource that patients use to choose healthcare providers. The authors investigated the factors involved in the recommendation of pediatric orthopaedic surgeons on a popular online physician-rating website. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using the 2020-2021 Pediatric Orthopedic Society of North America directory to identify United States active board-certified pediatric orthopaedic surgeons. Healthgrades.com was used to gather data including geographic location, years of experience, type of ratings, age, sex, and likelihood to recommend score (LTRS). Quantitative analysis was conducted using descriptive statistics, Student t-test, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Pearson correlation, and multiple linear regression models. Results: Seven hundred and one POSNA members (566 men, 135 women) were identified. A higher likelihood to recommend score (LTRS) was associated with short waiting times (P&lt;0.0001), reports of “appointment not being rushed” (P=0.001), and more total ratings (P=0.130). Male physicians were positively associated with LTRS (P=0.01). Surgeons with fewer years of experience had fewer negative reviews (P=0.02) and were more favorably rated (P&lt;0.05). Patients gave more positive (mean=3.37) then negative (mean=0.73) reviews and selected more “what went well” factors (mean=72) rather than “what could be improved” factors (mean=13). The South had more total, positive, and 5-star ratings (P&lt;0.01). Conclusions: Patients are more likely to rate pediatric orthopaedic surgeons on the two extremes when using online reviews. Physicians with the fewer years practicing received higher LTRS, suggesting satisfaction is not related to experience. Factors such as reducing waiting times and not rushing appointments may help improve the likelihood of physicians being recommended in the future. Level of Evidence: Level IV.

Analysis of Patients' Online Reviews of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

Introduction:Physician rating websites (PRWs) are an increasingly popular interface between patient and surgeon. Despite the growing popularity of PRWs, little guidance exists for orthopaedic surgeons regarding online reviews. We analyzed online ratings and comments to provide a better understanding of patients' values and expectations so that surgeons can tailor their practice accordingly to enhance their clinical care and online reputation.Methods:Three common PRWs (Vitals, HealthGrades, and RateMDs) were queried from January 1, 2006, to May 18, 2020. Publicly available ratings, both quantitative (1 to 5 stars) and qualitative (free text comments), were collected. Comments were qualitatively tabulated as having positive or negative assessments for categories including outcome, personality, staff, surgical skill, visit time, bedside manner, wait time, diagnosis, knowledge, treatment, and advanced practice providers and analyzed using chi square goodness of fit. Quantitative comparisons of star ratings were made across surgeon years in practice, sex, practice setting, and PRW and compared using chi square independence testing.Results:In total, 81% of patient comments were found to have a positive assessment. Comments regarding outcome (P < 0.001), staff (P = 0.001), surgical skill (P < 0.001), or knowledge (P = 0.001) were more likely to be positive. Reviews regarding bedside manner (P < 0.001), wait time (P < 0.001), diagnosis (P < 0.001), treatment (P < 0.001), or advanced practice providers (P < 0.001) were more likely to be negative. Surgeon sex was not associated with a difference in quantitative ratings (P = 0.131), unlike practice setting (P < 0.001) and PRW (P < 0.001).Discussion:PRWs are a growing interface between surgeon and patient with a considerable effect on surgeon marketability. This study reveals a statistical association between certain patient-centered medical practices and positive patient reviews. This emphasizes the importance of ensuring that high standards are maintained throughout a physician's practice of maintaining a constant awareness of the fundamentals for effective patient care and of taking care to curate a physician's online presence.

Factors Associated with the Patient/Client Use of Report Cards, Physician Rating Websites, Social Media, and Google for Hospital and Physician Selection: A Nationwide Survey.

Objective: To explore the factors associated with the different uses of report cards, physician rating websites, social media, and Google, including awareness, physician finding, and decision-making based on reviews from the patient/client perspective. Methods: We used computer-assisted telephone interviews to conduct a nationwide representative survey in Taiwan. Results: The urbanization level of the area, income, and long-term health conditions were not associated with the three kinds of usage of the websites studied. Seeking health information was an important factor in the three kinds of website use. The employment industry was associated with awareness, and education level was associated with physician seeking and actions based on reviews. Conclusions: Different factors influenced the three kinds of usage: awareness, actual use (i.e., finding an appropriate physician), and decision-making based on reviews. Seeking health information is of primary importance regardless of how the websites are used. Practical implications: Policy-makers should focus on educating individuals working outside the health care sector to increase awareness of these websites and to assist individuals with low levels of education in increasing their use of these websites.

Awareness and Perception of Google® Reviews Among French GPs.

The objective of this study was to assess the perception of French general practitioners (GPs) and the impact of the Google® online physician rating system. We questioned the French GPs with a self-administered questionnaire. A total of 412 GPs had answered the complete questionnaire. 83.25% of respondents did not validate the relevance of the physician rating websites. The most decried limitations were the lack of validity of these opinions and the negative impact on physicians.

Patient satisfaction reviews for 967 spine neurosurgeons on Healthgrades.

Patients are increasingly relying on independent physician rating websites (PRWs) to obtain information about healthcare providers. Healthgrades.com is a widely used PRW that allows patients to rate physicians on various metrics of performance and quality of care. This study categorically investigated the correlations between demographics of spine neurosurgeons and online ratings on Healthgrades to better understand the factors driving patient satisfaction in spine surgery in the United States. In August-December 2019, the authors performed a retrospective data analysis using Healthgrades. The American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) membership database was used to identify spine neurosurgeons in the United States and extract biographical and career data. Individuals with an academic practice were further investigated for academic rank, leadership, and fellowship training. Scores from eight patient satisfaction metrics (PSMs) were collected for each surgeon from Healthgrades. A total of 967 spine neurosurgeons were included in the study cohort. Patient satisfaction did not correlate with sex, PhD acquisition, academic status, or academic rank. Among those who were academic surgeons, completion of fellowship training was associated with higher ratings. Geographical location of practice did not influence patient satisfaction. Prolonged wait time was an independent predictor of decreased patient satisfaction and was a key confounding variable underlying trends seen with advanced career duration and age. Overall, patients rated spine neurosurgeons highly favorably on the Healthgrades website. Due to the emerging role of PRWs in locating and assessing providers, it is important for both patients and clinicians to understand the factors that impact patient experience.

Using Publicly Available Reddit Data to Understand How Parents Choose Pediatricians

Parents are increasingly using online physician rating sites to select a pediatrician. However, no studies have examined the role of social media in influencing parents’ choice of a pediatrician. The objective of this study was to qualitatively analyze what factors influence the choice of a pediatrician in an online peer support community. We retrieved retrospective data of all threads made to 4 subreddits on the Reddit social media platform between January 1, 2018 and December 31, 2019. We performed qualitative analysis using an inductive approach on threads related to choosing a pediatrician. We identified several codes which were grouped into subcategories/categories and finally abstracted into themes. We retrieved a total of 179 threads and included 30 for qualitative analysis. Thematic analysis led to identification of four major themes that influence how parents choose pediatricians on a social media platform—pediatrician-specific factors, office-related factors, parent/patient factors, and social factors. An online peer support community can serve as an important source of information for parents when searching for a pediatrician. Pediatric practices should focus on providing unmet information needs to parents that will ease the burden of the search process.

105 Patient Satisfaction Reviews for 967 Spine Neurosurgeons

INTRODUCTION: Patients are increasingly relying on independent physician-rating websites (PRWs) to obtain information about healthcare providers. Healthgrades.com is a widely used PRW which allows patients to rate physicians on various metrics of performance and quality-of-care. METHODS: This study categorically investigated the correlations between demographics of spine neurosurgeons and online ratings on Healthgrades to better understand the factors driving patient satisfaction in spine surgery in the United States. RESULTS: A total of 967 spine neurosurgeons were included in the study cohort. Patient satisfaction did not correlate with gender, Ph.D. acquisition, academic status, or academic rank. Among those who were academic surgeons, completion of fellowship training was associated with higher ratings. Geographical location of practice did not influence patient satisfaction. Prolonged wait time was an independent predictor of decreased patient satisfaction and was a key confounding variable underlying trends seen with advanced career duration and age. CONCLUSION: Overall, patients rated spine neurosurgeons highly favorably on Healthgrades.com. Due to the emerging role of PRWs in locating and assessing providers, it is important for both patients and clinicians to understand the factors that impact patient experience.

Characterizing Negative Online Reviews of Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgeons.

The growing focus on subjective patient experiences has created an increase in popularity for physician rating websites. The purpose of this study was to characterize extremely negative reviews of pediatric orthopaedic surgeons. Pediatric orthopaedic surgeons were randomly selected using the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America comprehensive list of surgeons. A search was then performed on Healthgrades.com, Vitals.com, and Yelp.com for 1-star reviews. Reviews were classified into clinical and nonclinical categories. Statistical analyses were performed regarding the frequency of reviews and complaints for each respective category. Of the 279 one-star reviews categorized, 248 reviews (88.9% of reviews) included nonclinical complaints, and 182 reviews (65.2% of reviews) included clinical complaints. Nonsurgical patients were associated with 255 reviews, and the remaining 24 were related to surgical patients. Of the 430 comments within reviews, 248 referenced nonclinical aspects of care, and 182 referenced clinical care. Clinical factors most frequently noted included clinical disagreement (37%), unclear treatment plan (25%), complication (17%), misdiagnosis (15%), uncontrolled pain (13%), and delay in care (8%). The most addressed nonclinical factors included physician bedside manner (68%), time spent with provider (21%), wait time (18%), unprofessional staff (17%), scheduling issues (9%), cost (8%), and billing (8%). Compared with surgical reviews, nonsurgical reviews were more likely to contain nonclinical complaints (rate ratio: 1.5; P<0.05) and less likely to contain clinical complaints (rate ratio: 0.7; P<0.05). The most common complaint by surgical patients was complications (91.7%). To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the factors associated with negative reviews of pediatric orthopaedic surgeons. The majority of reviews of pediatric orthopaedic surgeons were left by nonsurgical patients and were related to nonclinical aspects of care. We also found surgeon-dependent factors such as poor physician bedside manner, unclear treatment plan, or parents' disagreement with treatment plan were the most common reasons for negative reviews. Level IV.

The Role of Emotions Intensity in Helpfulness of Online Physician Reviews

Online physician reviews (OPRs) critically influence the patients’ consultation decisions on physician rating websites. The increasing number of OPRs contributes to the challenge of information overload. The worth of development needs to be explored further. Based on the OPRs collected from RateMDs and Healthgrades, and Plutchik’s wheel on human emotions framework, the purpose of this study was to examine the impact of emotional intensity (positive and negative) incorporated in OPRs on review helpfulness (RH). The proposed model was empirically tested using data from two physician rating websites and applying a mixed-methods approach (text mining and econometrics). The results suggested that anger, disgust, and fear (negative emotions), while joy, anticipation, and trust (positive emotions) significantly contributed to the perceived RH. Moreover, the patient’s disease severity moderated the association between negative emotions (anger and disgust), or positive emotions (joy and trust) and the perceived RH. Anger incorporated in an OPR has a more negative impact on perceived RH for severe diseases than the mild diseases. The findings contributed to the significance of emotions in OPRs from an innovative perspective and provided practical insights for health rating platform owners to help patients in expressing their emotions more precisely.