Most of us who receive any form of healthcare completely trust their providers abilities to provide the best care possible. In most cases this is sufficient as the doctors, nurses, dentist, chiropractors etc. are good at what they do.

Some people look up to their doctors with almost god like infallibility and wouldn’t dare question their diagnosis or work done on them.

Healthcare providers are just like everybody else, human and imperfect. Some are bound to be better than others and some are bound to be very poor.

Unfortunately these health care providers and institutions are largely free from constructive criticism or no process of ratings and reviews are available for patients. What hospital, clinic or union wants to advertise the fact that some of it’s employee’s are poor at what they do. So they either don’t want to know if they are doing a bad job or hide the information if they find it out, rather than face any bad public press.

This lack of critique and lack of formal ratings and reviews is a recipe for poor health care workers to thrive and continue delivering poor service for their entire careers. With little accountability it’s human nature that some people with abuse this, much like a poor mechanic will take you for a ride with car repairs. While your wallet and car might take a hit with the poor mechanic it’s worse with your health, or that of a loved one of course.

Fortunately there is no need to wait for governments, hospitals, clinics, unions or healthcare associations to provide you with the means to provide patient reviews and research other patient experiences with whom you are entrusting your healthcare and your family’s with. The internet is now providing these services for you. A few websites now provide forums to provide patient reviews and research other peoples experiences with healthcare providers. These services are free to use and want to hear your opinions.

Using these websites will reward the best healthcare professional with positive public endorsements and encourage the poorer practitioners to shape up, otherwise people will stop going to them. Some of the poorer practitioners may sincerely believe their services are genuinely great, but only with some constructive patient feedback will they become as good as they think they are.

I have a lot of respect for the vast majority of healthcare providers, they are generally extremely hard working, intelligent and devoted to their jobs. It’s the bad apples I would like to be accountable and when someone’s health is at stake that isn’t much to ask for.

Usually when people apply for work or get a contractor to work on their home they get a reference, why not get a reference when someone is working on your body ?