title: What Patients Think About Their Interventional Radiologists: Assessment Using a Leading Physician Ratings Website.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study was to evaluate patient satisfaction scores for interventional radiologists (IRs) across the United States using a leading physician ratings website.
  
  
  METHODS
  The physician ratings website Healthgrades was manually queried for all 2,774 Medicare-participating self-designated IRs. All patient-reviewed IRs for whom the primary "likelihood of recommending to family and friends" field was scored were included, resulting in 781 included IRs. Physician characteristics were extracted from Medicare data sets. All available patient satisfaction scores (1 [poor] to 5 [excellent]: likelihood to recommend, ease of scheduling, office environment, staff friendliness, trust in physician's decisions, how well physician explains condition, how well physician listens and answers questions, whether physician spends appropriate time with patients) and wait times were extracted from Healthgrades. Associations among measures were explored.
  
  
  RESULTS
  IRs' mean likelihood-to-recommend score was 4.3 ± 1.2 (median, 5.0; 64.5% received a score of 5; 10.5% received scores < 3). Mean scores ranged from 4.4 to 4.5 for office-related factors and from 4.3 to 4.5 for physician-related factors. Likelihood-to-recommend scores showed substantial correlations with office-related factors (r = 0.738 to 0.780) and physician-related factors (r = 0.918 to 0.946). Likelihood to recommend was significantly higher for IRs with shorter wait times (P < .001) but was not associated with physician gender or geographic region (P = 0.370-0.791), nor was there any correlation with physician age, years since graduation, or group practice size (r = -0.089 to 0.096).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Satisfaction scores on a leading physician ratings website generally range from very good to excellent for US IRs. Most patients leaving reviews are likely to recommend their own IRs to friends or family members. The likelihood to recommend is strongly associated with differences in wait times.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, NYU School of Medicine, NYU Langone Medical Center, New York, New York.
authors.forename: Chika C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Obele
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Duszak
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia.
authors.forename: C Matthew
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Hawkins
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, NYU School of Medicine, NYU Langone Medical Center, New York, New York. Electronic address: andrew.rosenkrantz@nyumc.org.
authors.forename: Andrew B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Rosenkrantz
mesh_terms: D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D006278:Medicare / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D000072177:Radiologists / Q000145:classification*; D015642:Radiology, Interventional; D014481:United States
keywords: Interventional radiology; patient experience; patient satisfaction; social media