A Large Number of Reviews on Physician Rating Websites May Reflect Reputation Management.

Background: Physicians with a large number of reviews and a high rating may be employing reputation management strategies. Specialists may be more likely than non-specialists to employ such strategies. This should be apparent in a study of online physician reviews on physician rating websites (PRW).

Methods: Using one physician rating website, we gathered orthopedic surgeon and family physician reviews. We measured Spearman correlations between the number of reviews and average numerical rating and used chi-squared to test threshold relationships.

Results: There were very small negative Spear-man correlations between the number of online reviews and the average numerical rating for orthopedic surgeons (p= -0.097, p-value=<0.001) family medicine physicians (p= -0.170, p-value=<0.001; Figure 2). Physicians with more than 100 reviews had a greater average numerical rating than physicians with fewer than 50 reviews. Orthopedic surgeons are more likely than family medicine physicians to have a large number of reviews and average numerical rating greater than 3.

Conclusion: The small fraction of physician with a high number of reviews may be utilizing reputation management strategies, and this seems relatively specific to specialists rather than non-specialists. Level of Evidence: III.