Doctor-Rating Websites Lack Convictions and Medical Malpractice Claims Against Some Physicians

Feliciano School of Business professor, Dr. Stanislav Mamonov from the Department of Information Management and Business Analytics, was recently interviewed by the Wall Street Journal about a study he did on opioid-related whistleblowing in physician-rating websites. 

Physician-rating websites focus primarily on patient experiences; it can be very challenging to find patients’ medical outcomes information, including medical malpractice and disciplinary actions on physicians.

Dr. Mamonov’s research “used text mining to see to explore linguistic cues in reviews of doctors who had been charged with overprescribing opioids.” He found that, at least in some cases, physician-rating sites could help locate problematic practices, indicating that patient reviews that often include patient complaints, could be a useful tool for regulators.

This research laid the foundation for examining the value of customer feedback in other contexts. Dr. Mamonov says – “I have several follow up projects that examine the value of customer voice in medical infoveillance. These include identification of harmful side effects in nutritional supplements and identification of counterfeit products in e-commerce platforms.”

To read more (subscriber-only):

https://www.wsj.com/articles/doctors-red-flags-rating-websites-c8fcc98f