title: Physician rating websites: do radiologists have an online presence?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Given that patient satisfaction and provider transparency intersect on online physician-rating websites, we aimed to assess radiologist representation on these increasingly popular sites.
  
  
  METHODS
  From a directory of all Medicare participating physicians, we randomly selected 1,000 self-designated diagnostic radiologists and manually extracted their rating information from five popular online physician-review websites (HealthGrades, Healthcare Reviews, RateMDs, Kudzu, and Yelp). Using automated web "data-scraping" techniques, we separately extracted all radiologist and nonradiologist rating information from a single amenable site (Healthcare Reviews). Rating characteristics were analyzed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of 1,000 sampled self-designated diagnostic radiologists representing all 50 states, only 197 (19.7%) were profiled on any of the five online physician-review websites. Only 24 (2.4%) were rated on two of the sites, and none was profiled on ≥3 sites. Of all 6,775 physicians listed on a single electronically interrogated site, only 30 (0.4%) were radiologists. With 28,555 (5.2%) of all 547,849 Medicare-participating physicians identified as diagnostic radiologists, radiologists were thus significantly underrepresented online (P < .0001). Although reviewed radiologists and nonradiologists were rated online by similar numbers of patients (1.13 ± 0.43 versus 1.03 ± 0.22, P = .22), radiologists were rated (on a low to high score of 1 to 10) significantly higher than nonradiologists (median 8.5 versus 5, P = .04).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Most diagnostic radiologists are not profiled on common online physician-rating websites, and they are significantly underrepresented compared with nonradiologists. Reviewed radiologists, however, scored favorably. Given the potential for patient satisfaction scores and public domain information to affect referrals and future value-based payments, initiatives to enhance radiologists' online presence are advised.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology and Imaging Services, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia. Electronic address: albert.kirven.gilbert.iv@emory.edu.
authors.forename: Kirven
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Gilbert
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology and Imaging Services, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia.
authors.forename: C Matthew
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Hawkins
authors.affiliation: Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute, Reston, Virginia; Department of Health Administration and Policy, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.
authors.forename: Danny R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Hughes
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology and Imaging Services, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia.
authors.forename: Kishen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Patel
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology and Imaging Services, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia.
authors.forename: Navdeep
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gogia
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology and Imaging Services, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia.
authors.forename: Aarti
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sekhar
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology and Imaging Services, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia; Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute, Reston, Virginia.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Duszak
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009862:Online Systems; D017060:Patient Satisfaction / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010820:Physicians / Q000145:classification* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011871:Radiology; D061108:Social Media / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States; D000078329:Workforce
keywords: Health care social media; Internet; physician rating websites; provider transparency; public reporting