Why we're still waiting on the yelpification of healthcare.

"While power has indeed shifted into the hands of the consumer when it comes to buying a car or choosing a restaurant, this revolution -- what Rothschild terms "Yelpification" -- hasn't, well, revolutionized health care.

Writing in the New York Times, Ron Lieber attributed the lack of authoritative doctor reviews to patients' unwillingness to do the actual reviewing. The problem, he said, is one of basic supply and demand: "Many people want this information, and more consumers would trust it if the sites had more robust offerings." While Vitals.com is accruing the numbers, it has yet to make the impact that its model, Yelp, has. Other sites, like Healthgrades and RateMDs remain similarly under the radar. And while Yelp itself, along with its paid counterpart, Angie's List, feature reviews of doctors and clinics, questions over just how reliable the information they provide is takes on greater significance when applied to something as important, and personal, as health care.

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If patients' alternating fear or idolization of their doctors does, as Lieber contends, prevent them from wanting to voice their opinions online, then Vitals' granting of anonymity to reviewers should help them to be as open as they want in composing their reviews. Part of the problem, suggests Rothschild, is that we don't tend to think of the patient-doctor relationship in terms of buyers and sellers. With the subtly incendiary tagline, "Where doctors are examined," Vitals attempts to reconfigure the power balance in favor of the "buyer" -- in this case, the patient."

Rest of article here: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/10/why-were-still-waiting-on-the-yelpification-of-health-care/263815/