How Online Quality Ratings Influence Patients’ Choice of Medical Providers: Controlled Experimental Survey Study

Abstract

Background: In recent years, the information environment for patients to learn about physician quality is being rapidly changed by Web-based ratings from both commercial and government efforts. However, little is known about how various types of Web-based ratings affect individuals’ choice of physicians. Objective: The objective of this research was to measure the relative importance of Web-based quality ratings from governmental and commercial agencies on individuals’ choice of primary care physicians. Methods: In a choice-based conjoint experiment conducted on a sample of 1000 Amazon Mechanical Turk users in October 2016, individuals were asked to choose their preferred primary care physician from pairs of physicians with different ratings in clinical and nonclinical aspects of care provided by governmental and commercial agencies. Results: The relative log odds of choosing a physician increases by 1.31 (95% CI 1.26-1.37; P