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

Objectives: 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.
Study Design: Qualitative thematic analysis.
Methods: 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).
Results: 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.
Conclusions: 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.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.