Are Online Reviews of Physicians Reliable Indicators of Clinical Outcomes? A Focus on Chronic Disease Management

Current trends on patient empowerment indicate that patients who play an active role in managing their health also seek and use information obtained from online reviews of physicians. However, it is far from certain whether patient-generated online reviews accurately reflect the quality of care provided by physicians, especially in the context of chronic disease care. Because chronic diseases require continuous care, monitoring, and multiple treatments over extended time periods, it can be quite hard for patients to assess the effectiveness of a particular physician accurately. Given this credence nature of chronic disease care, the research question is the following: what is the information value associated with online reviews of physicians who treat chronic disease patients? We address this issue by examining the link between online reviews of physicians and their patients’ actual clinical outcomes based on a granular admission–discharge data set. Contrary to popular belief, our study finds that there is no clear relationship between online reviews of physicians and their patients’ clinical outcomes, such as readmission risk or emergency room visits. Our findings have two major implications: (a) online reviews may not be helpful in the context of healthcare services with credence aspects; (b) because treatments of chronic diseases have more credence good characteristics when compared with surgeries or other acute care services, one should not extrapolate research on surgeries and acute care services to chronic disease care. Rather, one should acquire a better understanding of the information conveyed in online reviews regarding a physician’s ability to deliver certain clinical outcomes before drawing inferences. Our findings have important ramifications for all stakeholders including hospitals, physicians, patients, payers, and policymakers.