Let’s face it. If you’re anything like me, you have a need to know things. You spend hours comparing product reviews to find the right gadget. You seek the online opinions of strangers when buying books, movies, and music. You’ve ‘googled’ for long lost friends and high school sweethearts. If you’re really snoopy, you may even know how much your neighbors paid for their houses. With the right search strategy, you can find information on anything and anyone.

So… you should be able to get the 411 on your doctor, right?

At least, you’d hope so. We all want to make informed decisions about our health. The insurance industry, employers, watchdog groups, and government agencies say they are listening. They’ve pushed for more openness and accountability in the health care industry. Is that a reality yet?

I decided to take a look around the Internet to check up on my doctor and see what I could find.

"Googling" your doctor

First I did the obvious by entering my doctor’s name into Google (www.google.com). I tried variations of his name and credentials, such as "Dr. John Q. Feelbetter" and "John Feelbetter MD." I searched with and without quotes, to expand my investigation.

A company called HealthGrades (www.healthgrades.com) came to the top of the results. On this site, I found my doctor, entered my credit card information, and downloaded a 14-page "physician quality report" on him. I was also asked to complete a survey about him. It seemed like I was off to a good start.

However, I already knew most of the information in the report. It provided my doctor’s name, address, telephone number, and gender. (No so helpful.) It also told me his specialty areas and that he’s certified by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS). The report compared my doctor to three similar local doctors based on professional conduct, board certification, years since medical school, and ability to speak a foreign language. (Sort of helpful.)

The report confirmed that no state or federal disciplinary actions had been taken against him in the last 5 years. That was good. But only 15 states publically provide malpractice data, and the report told me that my state isn’t one of them. So I was out of luck there.

Finally, the report stated that he comes highly recommended, based on a single patient’s survey result. Unfortunately, that survey was mine.

My search continues

After some additional hunting, I found patient reviews of physicians at www.doctorscorecard.com and www.healthcarereviews.com. Some critiques targeted not only doctors but also nurses, secretaries, and other support staff. I considered posting my own report about a rude receptionist in my doctor’s office, but I was on a mission and time is valuable, so I pressed on.

At another site, www.ratemds.com, I could grade my doctor on a scale of 0 to 5. My doctor’s name wasn’t available to be rated, so I randomly checked patient reviews of other physicians. They ranged from the irate -- "This doctor is a menace to the public on many levels…" -- to the complimentary: "An amazing physician and an amazing man."

The comments seemed helpful on some level. After all, if a doctor gets nothing but a lot of negative reviews, something must be wrong, right? But then I wondered about the people who made these comments. What axes did they have to grind? What mood did they bring to the visit? What was the doctor’s case load like that day? After all, there are two sides to every story.

The last site I checked was the American Medical Association’s Doctor Finder (www.ama-assn.org/go/doctorfinder). This offered an informative profile of my doctor and links to state boards of medicine (www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/2645.html), where I confirmed my doctor’s medical degree and licensing status. (If you look for a non-AMA-member, the report contains only the person’s name, specialty, office location, and phone number.)

What's the bottom line?

All this hunting and clicking took a LOT of time. No one wants to become a full-time detective, and the results of all my effort were discouraging. I just want to know if I have a good doctor. Is that so much to ask? Overall, my Internet search turned up little more than what I already knew about my doctor.

Sites that rate a doctor based on anonymous surveys and anecdotal reports seemed of questionable value, especially when the number of reviews is small. You may be better off just asking someone you know and trust to recommend a doctor.

I called Marc Volavka, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council. "Be careful of anything on the web," he advises. "Know the source." Volavka knows how difficult and tricky it is to compare physicians. He oversaw the Council’s evaluation of cardiac and orthopedic surgeons. He explained that compiling and analyzing the complex data takes a lot of time and care. Listening to him, I wondered whether a handful of patient reviews had any value at all.

Here is the upshot of all this. The information on my doctor’s performance that I really wanted to find on the Internet isn’t really available yet – such as surgical success, complication rates, and malpractice judgments.

Until the day arrives when all this data is more freely available, many of us are stuck with picking a nearby doctor with little more information than a name, address, and whether they are part of our insurance plan. In this age of data overload, that’s a paradox indeed.

Editor’s Note: In future editions of this newsletter, we will look at ways the business of healthcare is changing to address the needs of consumers like you and me. The tide is turning in our favor, and Synergy will be there to take you through it.

Jim Black is a freelance writer from Pittsburgh who (now) prefers to learn about his doctor in person. Jim can be reached at featuredstories@adamcorp.com.