"They Gave Me One Star?" An Analysis of Online Reviews of Hand Surgeons

Measures of patient satisfaction are growing in importance. Patients can use online review websites as opportunities to both praise and criticize their physicians and health care experience. We examined "one star" reviews of American Society for Surgery of the Hand (ASSH) members, with the hypothesis that the types of complaints would differ based on patient management and physician gender (based on social identity).

We assembled a list of ASSH members in the Midwest region using the ASSH "Find a Hand Surgeon" tool. We then screened three online physician rating websites, including Yelp.com, Healthgrades.com, and Vitals.com, for physician profiles and related one-star reviews with comments attached. Two independent reviewers graded each comment using a standardized complaint key and came to an agreed score for each comment.

A total of 582 physicians were evaluated. We identified 1,295 one-star comments containing 3,256 individual complaints. The most frequently cited complaint regarded physician bedside manner/professionalism, present in 906 out of 1,295 (70%) comments. Nonsurgical patients had a greater number of complaints related to physician management style and office dynamics, specifically physician communication, bedside manner/professionalism, evaluation, time spent with patient, wait time and scheduling compared to surgical patients. However, surgical patients had more complaints per comment (3.17 ± 1.46) compared to nonsurgical patients (2.28 ± 1.21), and their comments centered more on outcomes including complications from care, satisfaction with care outcomes, need for a new surgery, and unmanaged pain. Men physicians were more likely to have complaints lodged for nonphysician-related issues (specifically, professionalism of their staff members) compared to women physicians.

Nonsurgical patients focus on their care process as a whole, including physician style and visit experience, whereas surgical patients center on outcomes of care. The gender of the hand surgeon may influence the nature of patient reviews, as evaluations of men physicians more frequently focused on aspects of visit experience, such as staff interactions.

Prognostic V.