"You can find ratings on cars and flat-screen TVs, but it's hard to rate professional services," he says. "I think that's overlooked."
Angie's List, a membership-based service that allows consumers to rate dozens of types of local service providers -- painters, piano movers -- and then access those ratings, added healthcare services to its roster in March.
The operators of Vitals.com, which launched nationally in January, say their goal is to provide people with free, fair and balanced information to help them select a doctor.
"We think of it as something closer to Match.com, in which we want to match up patients with doctors who are right for them," says Mitchel Rothschild, chief executive of the Lyndhurst, N.J., company.
The restaurant survey company Zagat has even gotten into the act, teaming up with the national health benefits company Wellpoint Inc., parent company of Anthem Blue Cross, to provide some Blue Cross members with an online tool to evaluate their doctors. The service started in January and allows members to issue scores on a health professional based on specific criteria: trust, communication, availability and environment.
"Consumers can pretty much go on the Web and get information on anything, from what is a better shampoo to what is a better airline," says Dr. Zeinab Dabbah, chief medical officer of Anthem Blue Cross. "We're offering this to meet all of the expectations that consumers have about the marketplace."
An empowering tool
The ease of sharing information on the Web has given consumers a powerful hammer.
"The Internet is such a great tool for transparency," Swapceinski says. "In every profession there are some bad apples. In the medical profession, in particular, you really want to avoid them."
But viewing a doctor in the same manner as any service provider or product represents a dramatic shift in Americans' perception of healthcare. Once reverential of doctors, consumers today are more comfortable criticizing their physicians, says Dr. Kevin Weiss, president of the American Board of Medical Specialties, an organization that sets performance standards and certifies doctors.
"There is a lot of pent-up frustration," he says. "Costs are going up, and people are paying more out of pocket. Plus, there is a lot of data now on how the healthcare system needs to do better in terms of quality and safety."
