Let’s say you are in the market for a new doctor. How would you go about the search? How would you ultimately choose which doctor to go see? Would you trust your insurer to provide you with recommendations? Would you do a quick search online to find doctors who have been reviewed by other people? Or would you try some other method to find your next doctor?
Chances are, you received a reference from a friend, colleague or other medical professional and trusted that reference. There’s nothing wrong with that course of action — this hypothetical situation was merely meant to illustrate the confounding process of searching for a new doctor, and the inadequate resources, grades and data we have at our disposal to pick new doctors.
According to a new poll by the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Associated Press, not many people are confident in their ability to choose a doctor based on the doctor’s quality of care. Only 22 percent of those who participated in the poll said they were confident they could find the necessary information to adequately compare local doctors based on their quality of care.
Obviously more needs to be done to give people the resources they need to compare doctors, but there was another interesting fact from this study. Just 4 percent of people said they experienced poor care from a doctor.
This is important because medical errors are truly uncommon events. At the same time though, when they do happen, proper justice needs to occur, and the victims of that error need to be compensated through a civil lawsuit for the medical bills and pain they are dealing with as a result of the error.
Source: “Before doctors check out your vitals, check out theirs”
