Australian doctors are miffed about a website that will for the first time publicly rank the performance of the nation's medical practitioners. The Newcastle-based health fund NIB will launch a website - whitecoat.com.au next month which will compare dentists, physiotherapists and other health providers on the internet. But the Australian Medical Association (AMA) says it is certain to make unfair comparisons.
According to NIB chief marketing officer Rhod McKensey his fund's website will rank practitioners on price, service and experience based on feedback from NIB members. “It is basically a one to five rating similar to say a restaurant rating in terms of an individual provider's charges compared to their peers…So a provider with high average charges would get a 5 rating and a provider with very low service charges would get a 1 rating.” The results will be available for everyone to view on the internet he added.
NIB's initiative is taken because Australians turn to the internet to find out about their medical problems or to find the best doctor to take care of them. It is that trend which is driving NIB to set up the website to provide advice. Mr McKensey said, “I'd say that the consumers and internet savvy users are now used to these kind of sites…They understand that not all reviews necessarily represent their own feelings.”
The AMA says it is concerned the results will be simplistic and misleading. President-elect Dr Steve Hambleton says “every patient's experience is a personal one” and “It is hard to commoditise that,” he said. He explained, “For example if there was an obstetrician who was very well thought of and attracted all the most difficult cases, there is going to be more adverse outcomes because of that high risk. Now that might not really translate into the risks for the next person so trying to rate medical facilities or even individuals is very difficult because those personal experiences are all different. We are in the information age but we do have to have a balance.”
The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency added that it is closely monitoring NIB's plans. The national regulator's concern is that testimonials can become advertising and that is against the law.
The country's largest fund, Medibank Private, has adopted a different model. “For the last four years Medibank has done the largest national survey with hospital providers which we call our member experience survey of which more than 90,000 members have responded and have given us feedback as to the service they have received and the quality of care they have received,” Medibank's head of provider relations Cindy Shay said. “They respond based on the hospital in which they had a healthcare experience and some of them are quite vocal in their views... and we take that information and we use it to work with hospitals to improve the quality of care that they provide.” She says they publish the top hospitals on the internet. “The top 20 to 30 hospitals we publish and launch each year so that that is there and we do a reasonable amount of promotion work as well with those hospitals because we want to encourage confidence in the healthcare system,” she said.
Federal Human Services Minister Tanya Plibersek yesterday warned NIB that it would breach the Health Insurance Act 1973 if it used information provided to it by Medicare Australia for billing purposes to create the website's list of provider names and addresses.
The Consumers Health Forum strongly backed the website, saying it would provide “legitimate and useful information” on picking the right provider.
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