The matter of ratings on doctors is controversial, and we think it’s going to get more so.
For instance, a recent development is that organisations are emerging that specialise in “protecting doctors’ reputations” – in other words, they specialise in contacting those who have provided ratings on doctors that are perhaps less than favourable with a view to “encouraging” them to take them down.
This is in addition to what has seemed obvious for some time, and that is that perhaps the very worst doctors often seem to organise for ratings to be put up on them that make them out to be perhaps the best doctors in the world.
We will write more on this in due course – we feel as though we could write a book!
In the meantime, we strongly advocate doing this with doctors you are considering using -do a Google search on, say, “Dr AAA BBBB ratemds.” It will only take a few seconds, and if there are any ratings on the RateMDs.com website on this doctor, you will no doubt have “to read between the lines,” but you may pick up something that is useful one way or the other.
For instance, if you do a search on “Dr Jodi Lynch ratemds,” to pick an example at random, you will find that she has four 10 out of 10 ratings on that rating site.
(For more information on RateMDs.com you might go to two posts we have previously put up on them – this and this.)
The fact is that, with organisations like AHPRA and the NSW HCCC, which are supposed to being regulating the profession, being so useless, if you’ve had a bad experience with a doctor, perhaps the only thing you can do is put up a rating telling your story on the web. And it won’t take years, it will be up there straight away.