Doctors protest online survey
June 15, 2009
The German Association of Health Insurers (AOK) has announced that insured patients, numbering around 24 million, will be able to grade their doctors' performance and services in an online questionnaire starting next year.
Online surveys already exist for a number of professions and industries in Germany, including university professors, car-dealers, and nursing home staff, but a proposal to introduce a similar assessment tool for the medical community has caused a stir among doctors. They fear that the design of the online survey would be overly simplistic, and could lead patients to judge doctors only on their test results, rather than on the actual quality of the treatment and care they provide.
Insurance spokesperson Susanne Ruesberg-Uhrig acknowledges the demand for a rating system for doctors, but insists that the project will only make sense if doctors and scientists can develop a "criteria catalog."
The president of the German Medical Association, Joerg-Dietrich Hoppe, is also critical, saying that it is not legitimate "to use an anonymous questionnaire as a basis for rankings."
Proponents of the online survey say it is a necessary and helpful tool for patients seeking answers to a wide range of topics while selecting a doctor, such as the length of clinic wait-times and how well a doctor listens to his or her patients.
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Editor: Susan Houlton