Internet portal for physician search and evaluation

New Internet portal to facilitate the doctor search

19/08/2011

The Verband der Ersatzkassenverbandes (vdek) has launched a new internet portal where interested patients can find and evaluate doctors, dentists, psychotherapists and emergency ambulances in their vicinity.

More than 150,000 reviews have already been submitted, according to media reports, on the vdek's new Internet portal. Among other things, the users rated the service, the organization and the friendliness of the practical staff according to school grades. In addition, patients can freely formulate impressions and experiences in corresponding entries, explained vdek CEO Thomas Ballast. As the vdek boss announced on Friday in Berlin, the Internet portal should give the interested patients another way to look for the best possible doctor, but without serving as a public pillory for doctors and therapists. Also, the evaluation by laymen can not be equated with a doctors-TÜV, which measures the quality of treatment in the different practices, said the vdek CEO.

Incomplete physician search, physician evaluation prone to manipulation
Similar to the recently available physician navigator of the AOK and the Barmer GEK, the portal, which can be reached at www.vdek-arztlotse.de, offers a full-coverage medical directory in which all general practitioners, dentists, psychotherapists and emergency ambulances are listed throughout Germany vdek. In addition to the search option, there is also the option of evaluating doctors, whereby, in contrast to the portals of the AOK and the Barmer GEK, no minimum number of assessments is provided for here before these are published. If in doubt, users have to decide for themselves whether, for example, a single good rating can be sufficient to judge a practice as appropriate. In addition, since the users do not have to register to give a rating, it is to be feared that the results of the physician evaluation will be relatively strongly falsified in the long run. The weight that should be attached to this supposed patient assessment in the search for a doctor in the future seems questionable. On the other hand, the possibility of finding a doctor via the online medical directory is quite positive, although the restriction to special physician groups slightly reduces the positive impression. Patients interested in alternative treatments quickly reach their limits. Remedy in such cases, for example, naturopaths and naturopathic therapists. (Fp)

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