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

BACKGROUND: 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. OBJECTIVE: 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. METHODS: 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. RESULTS: 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. CONCLUSIONS: 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.