Docs Say Keep Mum but Some Patients Want to Tell All

March 5, 2009— -- Patients are likely to seek health care information wherever they can these days, from friends, other patients and, increasingly, the Internet. They may also have the urge to add their own voices to the mix.

For these patients, Web sites such as Angie's List and RateMDs.com can be a place to opine and rate their physician experience.

But information on the Internet is still information on the Internet, which means it is of uncertain credibility. And inaccurate physician ratings have the power to do a lot of damage when patients forget to take them with a grain of salt.

A company called Medical Justice from Greensboro, N.C., has been attempting to remedy what it calls misinformation by heading off would-be posters with a waiver, to be signed pre-treatment, in which patients promise not to contribute to online rating sites about their doctor.

But the idea of signing such a waiver does not sit well with some patients.

"I would not use a doctor that pushed that in any way," said Danielle Panetta, 34, who has type-1 diabetes and visits specialists monthly to care for her disease. "It's not legally binding as far as I'm concerned."

Restricting online activity in any way may be a losing battle.

According to a study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 74 percent of adults in the United States go online and, of those, 80 percent look for health information online. Another study from 2006 showed that 29 percent of Internet users had looked online for information about a particular doctor or hospital.

"If there are doctors who are nervous, they should be nervous," said Susannah Fox, author of the Pew studies. "This is a tried-and-true activity online, researching a product or service before you buy it."

But Dr. Jeffrey Segal, CEO and founder of Medical Justice, says the waiver his company developed is not trying to restrict information but that the company is more interested in quality control.

"There is a disconnect between what we expect of health care in general and the system out there asking patients to rate their doctors," Segal said, pointing out that the average doctor, who may see thousands of patients each year, may have only five ratings on a site.