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As we mentioned earlier, one thing that we've heard repeatedly from patients is that they like to have access to reviews from other people. We've been aggregating patient reviews from a variety of sources, but now you can register an account and leave your very own DocSpot review.

As we mentioned earlier, one thing that we've heard repeatedly from patients is that they like to have access to reviews from other people. We've been aggregating patient reviews from a variety of sources, but now you can register an account and leave your very own DocSpot review.

After looking at a variety of review formats, we settled on allowing users to rate their providers on three dimensions (office and staff, bedside manner, and punctuality) and to leave an overall recommendation score. In addition, the user is encouraged to leave a textual comment to elaborate on the numeric ratings. You can see a DocSpot review here.

In addition, users can ask for their reviews to be considered a "documented encounter" by uploading some evidence of the visit (such as an explanation-of-benefits form or a receipt). Documented encounters give other users a much higher level of confidence that the encounter actually took place.

As always, we're looking for feedback. If you have any ideas on how to improve the process, please let us know!

While we continue to work away at implementing new features and increasing the accuracy of our aggregation process, a few of us got sidetracked with the flu. Not coming down with the flu (fortunately), but rather CDC's Flu App Challenge.

While we continue to work away at implementing new features and increasing the accuracy of our aggregation process, a few of us got sidetracked with the flu. Not coming down with the flu (fortunately), but rather CDC's Flu App Challenge.

It started out as a simple data visualization exercise, but pretty quickly grew into a more time-consuming project. At the end of it all, it's a fun resource about the flu, incorporating some of CDC's published resources. To kick off the whole campaign, there's a hilarious quiz.

We'd really appreciate it if you would vote for us -- it could mean extra pizza money for us.

We're always on the lookout for additional sources of information to bring together so that you can get a more complete picture of potential providers. To that end, we're pleased to announce that you can now see Yelp! reviews alongside reviews from other sources. As always, there's a link for you to see more about that provider at the original source.

As an example, here's a dermatologist. And here's an internist.

If you have ideas for other sources of data to integrate, please let us know.

We're always on the lookout for additional sources of information to bring together so that you can get a more complete picture of potential providers. To that end, we're pleased to announce that you can now see Yelp! reviews alongside reviews from other sources. As always, there's a link for you to see more about that provider at the original source.

As an example, here's a dermatologist. And here's an internist.

If you have ideas for other sources of data to integrate, please let us know.

We've been working on a free online service to help people find doctors for quite a while now. Finding data sources and getting it into a form that is useful and searchable has taken up most of the development time. When we started, we worked primarily with information from provider directories, which tend to list the most detailed information (e.g. pictures, clinical interests, treatment philospohy). We then started including government databases, which list information like disciplinary actions. More recently, we started to include reviews.

We've been working on a free online service to help people find doctors for quite a while now. Finding data sources and getting it into a form that is useful and searchable has taken up most of the development time. When we started, we worked primarily with information from provider directories, which tend to list the most detailed information (e.g. pictures, clinical interests, treatment philospohy). We then started including government databases, which list information like disciplinary actions. More recently, we started to include reviews. Along the way, we've had to spend some time on the user interface. Our next major milestone is to allow people to claim profiles and add or update relevant information.

Do you have any ideas of features to add or other data sources to include? If so, please let us know! You can either send us information via the feedback form, or you can register an account and post something on the discussion board. We'd appreciate the feedback.

How useful are patient reviews in determining whether a doctor is a good match for you? There's a surprising amount of controversy about this, with some doctors encouraging their patients to leave feedback and with others asking their patients to sign a form agreeing to not post patient reviews. We ourselves don't know how much weight patient reviews should be given. We do know, however, that the consumers that we've talked to have repeatedly asked for patient reviews, often as the most important factor in their decision.

How useful are patient reviews in determining whether a doctor is a good match for you? There's a surprising amount of controversy about this, with some doctors encouraging their patients to leave feedback and with others asking their patients to sign a form agreeing to not post patient reviews. We ourselves don't know how much weight patient reviews should be given. We do know, however, that the consumers that we've talked to have repeatedly asked for patient reviews, often as the most important factor in their decision.

Our philosophy has been to aggregate whatever information is publicly available and to allow users to filter by the attributes that are important to them. That is, we want to provide a useful tool through which users can express their preferences.

So, looking for patient reviews? We've found over 500,000 of them. And yes, you can filter by average rating and to some extent, by the number of reviews.