An editorial entitled “Rating your Doctor, Fairly” (The New York Times ([NYT)], December 8, 2007) discussed consumers’ need for reliable sources to rate physician quality. At present, insurers do much of this rating and apparently focus on costs, awarding grades or stars on the basis of expenditures. According to the editorial, physicians who are most “cost-effective” get the top marks. The NYT advocated a more encompassing set of rating criteria that would include measures such as adherence to guidelines or national standards (whatever they are). They also suggested posting physician scorecards on a single Web site to facilitate consumer choices.
The NYT has intelligent and trenchant editorials, but, in this case, I think that the paper has mistakenly oversimplified a complicated and contentious subject. Sure, there is an enormous amount of data on physicians out there, but creating a meaningful consumer guide will be a heroic undertaking, if possible. Furthermore, while a ratings system (a Zagat’s guide, in other words) may work for restaurants or movies, I am far from convinced that it would work for healthcare. After all, restaurants are a matter of taste and deciding that the food is a 26 or 27 has the same precision as deciding who has the prettiest face or the most talent in a beauty pageant.
