Ratings System for Physicians and Facilities Spearheaded by Zagat and Wellpoint

In a move that truly can help improve the quality of health care we receive, this week Wellpoint announced that it is teaming up with Zagat, a leading survey corporation. The plan is for consumers to be able to offer their comments about different physicians and hospitals. This move has true potential for consumer to truly hold physicians accountable.

On the new system, you will be able to offer your favorable and unfavorable opinions about different physicians and hospitals and be able to share your personal experiences. The goal is to help consumers make wiser decisions regarding which doctors and hospitals to choose for various ailments.

The Good and the Bad of Health Care Ratings

Despite what you think about Zagat, you must admit that this is a great way for you to help make a more educated decision about your health care. There are plenty of annual surveys out there that rate doctors and hospitals in different regions of the country. But there are few, if any, places you can turn to get a broad-based look at which doctors and which medical centers are providing what kind of care and to whom.

The main downfall of such a system is that it has the potential of being an unregulated place where opinions can be shared with little oversight. It will be interesting to see just how regulated the opinions that are shared are on the Wellpoint web site. The going thought is that Zagat will offer multiple choice questions for health care recipients to share their opinions about specific doctors and hospitals with one or two open-ended boxes on the web site, where you can write in your comments.

It will be interesting to see just how regulated the opinions will be, whether the opinions will be anonymous, whether those offering the opinions will be checked for accuracy by Zagat and whether the open-ended question answers will be available for public reading.