Rating Doctors

North Shore-LIJ Health System Raises the Bar Once Again

North Shore-LIJ Health System is now posting ratings from patients on-line to help choose a physician. 

Now patients who use doctors affiliated with North Shore LIJ Health System can expect that their concerns - and compliments will be used as a tool to hold physicians accountable for patient relations.   How many times have you felt that your physician didn’t spend enough time with you to explain a new medication, a procedure or a diagnosis? This dialogue and communication between patient and physician is crucial to help in getting the best care possible and better outcomes.

The site is simple enough to use.  Go to the system website, type in doctor search and you can start narrowing down your search.  In one instance I went from 374 choices and by choosing my insurance narrowed it down further to 236 and then by hospital – if you have a favorite hospital, narrowed it down to 79 physicians practicing in the field I searched.

Although in the time I spent searching, I couldn’t find any negative comments.  That leaves me to wonder where they are.  Are people just leaving a practice and moving on without filling out the survey?  This is a great opportunity for patients to help patients by getting the information out and for holding the physician responsible for their “patient relations”.

I would like to see it go one step further and let us know how the office staff treated us.  So often we have more interaction with the staff managing the practice.  That should be encouraged in comments.  Although this is not a guarantee for positive outcomes – there is never a guarantee, it is yet another tool for patients to be part of the team in making choices.   

Here is something else family and friends can do to help a loved one recently diagnosed or searching for a doctor.  Do the search. 

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