Comparison of Dermatologist Ratings on Health Care-Specific and General Consumer Websites

Many patients utilize online physician-rating websites to find new providers, review their experiences, and schedule appointments. However, many physicians express distrust of the reviews on these sites. This study sought to compare the reviews of randomly selected dermatologists on health care-specific sites (eg, Healthgrades, Zocdoc, Vitals, WebMD) vs general consumer sites (eg, Google, Yelp) to determine which type of sites more accurately reflected overall patient sentiment. Our data suggest that health care-specific websites more consistently reflect overall patient sentiment than general consumer sites. Therefore, reviews from health care-specific sites may be more beneficial than general consumer sites for physicians seeking to understand patient sentiment and improve patient experiences.