Friday, June 20, 2008

Turnabout is fair play?

The American Medical Association has announced that it will begin to rank health plans on the quality and timeliness of their claims administration according to the Chicago Tribune. The AMA believes that their ratings will serve as a counterpoint to health plan on-line ratings of physicians. However, the AMA News reports this week that relatively few people select their physicians by using these ratings:
A Harris Interactive poll commissioned by the California HealthCare Foundation found that although more than 80% of the state's adults turn to the Internet for health-related information, less than one-quarter have looked at physician ratings sites. Only 2% of those surveyed made a change in physicians based on information posted on a rating site.

That lack of reliance on ratings is not limited to choosing a physician. The survey, released in June, also found that only 1% of respondents made a change in their hospital or health plan based on ratings sites devoted to those entities.
The health plan trade association, AHIP, released a statement on the AMA's actions.

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