Insurers' online forums invite patients to vent

Physicians are uncomfortable with health plans allowing people to post unfiltered comments.

By Emily Berry, AMNews staff. Jan. 28, 2008.

"Not happy" wrote to complain about the 90-minute wait to be seen at a dermatologist's office. "Disgusted" said that a certain doctor "refuses to communicate with patients." But "CarolaBen" responded to "Disgusted" that this doctor returned every call placed by her regarding her husband's liver duct problem.

These comments were posted on The Healthcare Scoop, a place where patients can talk openly about experiences with physicians and hospitals. Patients name names, whether the experience was good or bad. But for the most part, the patients remain hidden behind pseudonyms.

Patients posting on the Internet with fake names about real doctors is hardly a new phenomenon. But what is particularly upsetting to physicians about The Healthcare Scoop is the company behind it -- Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota.

Physicians already have battled insurers over the quality of data used in creating physician ratings and tiered health plans. Now organized medicine is feeling uncomfortable about insurers moving into the realm of gathering and disseminating unfettered patient feedback.

"While we encourage open patient communication with their physicians, we are concerned that the public reporting of results from anonymous, Web-based patient satisfaction surveys may be counterproductive," said Edward L. Langston, MD, chair of the AMA Board of Trustees and a family physician in Lafayette, Ind.

"It is extremely difficult for such surveys to distinguish whether patient dissatisfaction, resulting from denied or delayed services, or failure to obtain a certain prescription, is due to the decision of the physician or the demands and restrictions of the health insurer," he said.