An Analysis of Online Evaluations on a Physician Rating Website: Evidence From a German Public Reporting Instrument

BackgroundPhysician rating websites (PRW) have been gaining in popularity among patients who are seeking a physician. However, little evidence is available on the number, distribution, or trend of evaluations on PRWs. Furthermore, there is no published evidence available that analyzes the characteristics of the patients who provide ratings on PRWs. ObjectiveThe objective of the study was to analyze all physician evaluations that were posted on the German PRW, jameda, in 2012. MethodsData from the German PRW, jameda, from 2012 were analyzed and contained 127,192 ratings of 53,585 physicians from 107,148 patients. Information included medical specialty and gender of the physician, age, gender, and health insurance status of the patient, as well as the results of the physician ratings. Statistical analysis was carried out using the median test and Kendall Tau-b test. ResultsThirty-seven percent of all German physicians were rated on jameda in 2012. Nearly half of those physicians were rated once, and less than 2% were rated more than ten times (mean number of ratings 2.37, SD 3.17). About one third of all rated physicians were female. Rating patients were mostly female (60%), between 30-50 years (51%) and covered by Statutory Health Insurance (83%). A mean of 1.19 evaluations per patient could be calculated (SD 0.778). Most of the rated medical specialties were orthopedists, dermatologists, and gynecologists. Two thirds of all ratings could be assigned to the best category, “very good”. Female physicians had significantly better ratings than did their male colleagues (P