Online evaluation of doctors

As of June, AOK insured persons can rate their doctors online on the Internet. This is to provide a high-quality orientation guide for finding the right doctor.

(23.05.2010) There are already hundreds of rating portals on the internet. Almost everything can be rated, the consumer is the focus. From June of this year, AOK health insurants will now be able to rate their doctors online on the Internet. The results of the assessments should help other patients to get a comprehensive picture of the qualities of the doctor.

The Allgemeine Ortskrankenkasse (AOK) will publish an online evaluation portal on the Internet from June. About 24 million AOK insured persons can answer about 30 questions in an online catalog. For example, the question of how long the waiting period was and whether the doctor has taken enough time to have an amnestic conversation is part of the evaluation questions. The questions should be less about medical reviews of the treatments, but about the quality of the offer. "There is a great need for reliable data on the quality and supply of doctors among our insured persons," argues the deputy chairman of the AOK Federal Association, Jürgen Graalmann. Because with the so-called doctor-navigator, the AOK wants to offer the insured a "high-quality orientation aid for the search for the right doctor".

The physician navigator should initially start regionally limited. First of all, the doctor evaluation portal in Berlin, Hamburg and Thuringia will start. In autumn 2010, the first evaluation results will be published. According to the initiators, it should be ensured by a large amount of data from results that evaluations about individual physicians can not be manipulated or falsified. This is to prevent physicians, for example, from wanting to put themselves in a positive light or from maliciously evaluating others negatively.

However, the physician navigator is not seen quite uncritically. In the past year, medical representatives had warned against manipulation and abuse. The Federal Data Protection Commissioner Peter Schaar also called for an "objectification" of the evaluations of patients. In addition to the physician navigator, the AOK has also set up an "AOK Hospital Navigator". Again, patients can rate the supply and quality of clinics. To date, around 200 hospitals from the regions of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein and Westfalen-Lippe are listed. By the end of 2010, all provinces and around 1000 clinics should be available. (Sb)

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