What Do Patients Think About Their Radiation Oncologists? An Assessment of Online Patient Reviews on Healthgrades

Introduction An increasing number of patients search for their physicians online. Many hospital systems utilize Press-Ganey studies as internal tools to analyze patient satisfaction, but independent third-party websites have a large presence online. Patients’ trust in these third-party sites may occur despite a low number of reviews and a lack of validity of patients’ entries. Healthgrades.com has been shown as the most popular site to appear on Google searches for radiation oncologists (ROs) in the United States (US). The aim of this study was to analyze patient satisfaction scores and the factors that influence those scores for American ROs on Healthgrades. Methods The physician ratings website Healthgrades was manually queried to obtain reviews from all Medicare-participating ROs with reviews (n=2,679). Patient Review Satisfaction Scores (PRSS) were recorded in response to a variety of questions. All information in the survey was scored from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) for the following characteristics: likelihood to recommend (LTR), office environment, ease of scheduling, trust in the physician’s decision, staff friendliness, ability of the physician to listen and answer questions, ability of the physician to explain the condition, and whether the physician spent sufficient time with the patients. Associations amongst these factors were considered by computing Spearman correlation coefficients and utilizing Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Results The ROs’ mean LTR score was 4.51±0.9 (median 5.0, 66% received the highest possible score of 5; 95% received a score>2). Patient reviews per RO ranged from 1 to 242 (4.50±0.9, median 2.0). LTR scores correlated very strongly with physician-related factors, ranging from r=0.85 (with appropriate time spent with patients) to r=0.89 (with level of trust in physician). LTR scores were not statistically significantly associated with gender, wait time, ROs’ years since graduation, academic status, or geographic region. Conclusion Satisfaction scores for ROs on a leading physician ratings website are very strong, and most patients leaving reviews are likely to recommend their own ROs to their friends and family. Understanding online ratings and identifying factors associated with positive ratings are important for both patients and ROs due to the recent growth in physician-rating third-party sites. ROs should have increased awareness regarding sites like Healthgrades and their online reputation.