Better specialty data
October 12, 2013
At DocSpot, our mission is to connect people with the right health care by helping them navigate publicly available information. We believe the first step of that mission is to help connect people with an appropriate medical provider, and we look forward to helping people navigate other aspects of their care as the opportunities arise. We are just at the start of that mission, so we hope you will come back often to see how things are developing.
An underlying philosophy of our work is that right care means different things to different people. We also recognize that doctors are multidimensional people. So, instead of trying to determine which doctors are "better" than others, we offer a variety of filter options that individuals can apply to more quickly discover providers that fit their needs.
October 12, 2013
One of our goals for this year has been to improve the quality of the data that we present to users. We find information about providers from a myriad of sources. The multiplicity of sources is a strength because we can find different categories of information from different sites. Sometimes, however, information from any one of these sources can be incorrect (even hospital directories can be inaccurate). Up until late 2012, our solution has been to simply show all of the data, even if some pieces conflict. In some cases, showing a variety of values is a feature. For example, a doctor can practice in multiple locations, and certain data sources might only show one address. In terms of the data fields that are less likely to have multiple values (such as specialty), our intuition was that by showing all available data, users would at least be tipped off to potential conflicts and could research further. Beginning late last year, we have been looking at ways to figure out which pieces of data are likely more accurate than others. A lot of research has gone into this study, and we're pleased to announce that we've released some changes to improve specialty data.
It will take some time for all of the data to migrate, but over time, you might notice some changes. We're always on the lookout on how to improve our data, so if you have any examples or ideas on how to arbitrate among conflicting values, please let us know.
October 03, 2013
If you regularly see a doctor that you love, you'll of course want to determine whether that doctor is in-network for any new insurance plan that you're considering. After all, continuing to receive treatment from an out-of-network doctor can mean some rather large medical bills. With that in mind, it's easy to see why officials would want to reassure users of the individual exchange that they would be able to easily determine the network status of any insurance plans that they are considering. Unfortunately, Los Angeles Times reported that despite having "touted the feature [doctor search tool] when enrollment began," the feature would not be ready until Monday or beyond.
We ourselves have found it difficult to get accurate and comprehensive data regarding which doctors accept which plans. While insurance companies have that information and even make it publicly available on their corporate websites, insurance companies generally do not make the information available through other channels. For example, most insurance companies' doctor finder websites ask that search engine "robots" (like the ones that we send out) not crawl their directories. At the same time, insurance companies' doctor finder applications tend to lack meaningful information used by patients to select a provider. What ends up happening is that online doctor directories end up with inaccurate or incomplete information, and patients end up needing to research multiple sites in order to triangulate. Which leads me to wonder: just why do insurance companies hold provider network information so tightly?
September 27, 2013
Did you know that you can find information about hospitals through this website? Don't worry, most people didn't either. If you're interested in finding out more information about hospitals in your area, you can type "hospitals" in the search form on the home page. Most of our efforts are spent refining our Clinician Finder, helping people find doctors, therapists, and other individuals. Periodically, however, we'll check in and update the hospital profiles.
This week, we released a number of cosmetic improvements to the hospital profiles. For example, under the People tab, the profiles are now arranged in a grid. The services tab more clearly delineate what's available at the hospital. We've actually been working on the hospital product quite extensively recently, but aren't quite yet to release all of the changes... stay tuned!
September 22, 2013
Although many factors go into the decision process for choosing a health care provider, for some patients, convenience can be the most important factor. For example, patients who want answers for a concerning (but non-urgent) medical issue may want to be seen the same day that they call in to make an appointment. Patients with physical impairments that prevent them from driving or using transportation may prefer providers who make house calls, rather than hiring outside help to take them to and from appointments. With these patients' interests in mind, we have recently added an option to find doctors and other health care providers who offer greater accessibility, whether by providing same-day appointments, accepting walk-ins, or performing house visits. You can find such providers by using the "Accessibility" filter under the "Practice Details" filter tab. Patients - let us know if there are other accessibility options you are interesting in seeing; providers - please add this information if applicable.
September 15, 2013
There's an interesting post on Emergency Physicians Monthly outlining why Healthgrades failed to be a useful resource in helping patients avoid a particularly incompetent physician. In this post, I'm not going to address Healthgrades' specific actions, but I think it's worthwhile to consider why patient ratings are so commonly used.
As the case of Dr. Duntsch demonstrates, patient ratings are not an ideal proxy for quality. Yet patients still use ratings to make health care-related decisions. Is this primarily because ratings sites like Healthgrades encourage patients to use ratings, as the author implies? Absolutely not. Patients use quality data (like ratings) to make health care decisions because they have no access to valid quality data (e.g. procedure volume and outcomes). To anyone who doubts that patients want to take advantage of more sophisticated metrics, consider this thought experiment: suppose a patient were going to undergo a difficult and invasive surgery and the patient had the choice of choosing to know either 1) the relevant case volumes and success rates of surgeon candidates or 2) patient satisfaction scores for the same surgeons, which set of information would the patient choose? I'd be hard pressed to think of any patient who would prefer to know patient satisfaction scores.
How did the health care industry come to witness this vacuum of the most meaningful quality information? Medical lobbyists such as the American Medical Association have frequently pushed to block policies aimed at increasing transparency. Patients are a loosely knit group and as such, have little effective leverage in shaping these policies; however, members of the medical community do have clout. As pointed out earlier, rather than complaining about the fallibility of patient ratings, the medical community should push for the release of physician-level quality metrics, obviating the heavy reliance on patient satisfaction scores. For a first step, how about pushing for access to the National Practitioner Databank? That databank has data that even professionals might find useful in making decisions about their own medical care.
One way or another, patients will find ways to make judgments about the quality of a professional's services -- after all, it could be a matter of life and death. Why shouldn't the medical community be proactive about helping patients make more informed choices?