That's right. Zagat's ratings and reviews for hotels and restaurants are...legendary? Maybe. But, Zagat has a long-established reputation for offering dependable ratings and reviews of restaurants and hotels...based on customer feedback.
And now Zagat is taking their system to...the medical care industry. Working with Wellpoint health insurance company, Zagat has begun to offer its ratings systems for customers of Wellpoint to rate their doctor's and the treatments received from these same doctors.
Wellpoint has been in the news for other reasons lately:
- Its 6th on the list of 10 worst insurance companies, nationwide.
- California recently ruled that its subsidiary, Anthem Blue Cross, needed to reinstate health insurance coverage for 2,300 policy-holders in good standing until they had the audacity to submit a claim.
- Link, American Medical News
- Link, WHNT
It's interesting to see them embrace an open-source, word-of-mouth, uncontrolled, citizen journalism, community rating system like Zagat to review the performance of doctors whose services are covered in Wellpoint's services, unless they decide to rescind your coverage...
And this, too, is but a first, baby-step, in the long journey to more accountability in our healthcare industry and more connection between what the patients, aka customers, need and want and what the healthcare system provides.
What's less interesting than predictable is the reactions of doctors, at least as they're described in this article: Noted Rater of Restaurants Brings Its Touch to Medicine.
1. It is curious that they would go to a company that had no experience in health care to try to find out how good a doctor is...
2. ...treating medical care provided by dedicated and caring physicians as if we were preparing a meal...
3. They [patients] usually don’t understand the technologies and skills needed for treatment...
4. There is no correlation between a doctor being an inept danger to the patient and his popularity...
Here's my responses:
#1. This comment ignores the system of Zagat. Zagat isn't rating the doctors. The doctor's patients, the doctor's customers, are rating the doctors. Zagat just organizes and presents that feedback from the customers, er patients, into a standard format.
#2. A professional's dedication and level of care is irrelevant, really. What's important is if that dedication and level of care delivers something of value to the customer, er patient. Is their life made better? Does it solve a probem for them? Honestly, if that dedication and care is as great as those preparing a meal, your patient, er customer, will know.
#3. If the patients don't understand the technologies and skills needed for treatment....whose fault is that? Now's a good time to make sure they understand the technologies and skills needed for treatment. By doing so, you'll communicate your dedication and care in a way that's meaningful to them.
#4. Where do you start? How many doctors who function as inept dangers to their patients remain popular? Or remain in business. That they do at all is a failure of the medical establishment. And who better knows a doctor's ineptitude than the patients and their families whose lives were rent asunder by the doctor's ineptitude? The boards that certify them? Please.
Doctors are the latest industry to awaken to the fact that their customers are talking about them. The customers are talking about their experiences. Their talking about them in unscripted conversations outside the control of the company or their PR firms.
Doctors are being rudely awakened to the power of word-of-mouth and its accelerant: social media. Doctor's cocoon's are being invaded with the reality that their patients are talking about them, talking about them when and where and about what the doctor's cannot control; patients are talking about their experiences with the doctor and not the doctor's perception of the doctor's dedication and level of care.
Doctor's never knew that until now. Until recently, doctor's had been above the consumer fray. Now it's intruding in their day. And this group doesn't like it.
I understand. Who doesn't like to control all conversations to their benefit? On the other hand, offer something meaningful to those in the conversation and they'll take the time to go to a website and expand the conversation about you, your service, what they experienced with it, etc.
Kinda like I am now with what Wellpoint and Zagat are doing.
Doctors, imagine the impact to your business if more and more of your patients, customers, rated you highest among your peers. It may be worth your time to spend more than 15 minutes on average with your patients in your office or make sure they know your name when you're treating them at a hospital. That communicates your dedication and care. I know my favorite waiter understands this.
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