Health
1News

Medical specialists' association calls for doctor review website to be shut down

July 26, 2018

The site launched in New Zealand today is already operating overseas.

Some doctors are outraged over a new website allowing patients to rate them online.   

The Whitecoat site launched in New Zealand today is already operating overseas. 

But concerned doctors say you can't review your experience with them like you would a vacuum cleaner.

Much of what we do today is online, and while writing an online review isn't uncommon, whitecoat.co.nz will now let you review your own doctor.

"In every other aspect of our everyday lives we can review things, see what is going on. And yet with healthcare we've never had that ability," said Matthew Donnellan, Whitecoat chief executive.

But the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists has slammed the site.

"It's comparing making a judgment call of a doctor with a purchase of a vacuum cleaner," said Ian Powell, ASMS executive director. 

Ian Powell is calling for the site to be shut down.

"A patient who doesn't like the message they're getting could well make a judgmental comment." 

But the website's boss has no plans to do that. Matthew Donnellan says the sites have seen huge success in Australia where the majority of comments, which are monitored, are positive.

"Any human being can say to another human being ' I felt like you listened to me, I felt like you explained things good to me.' Now whether that's a vacuum sales person or a GP is irrelevant - and no one, no one is above scrutiny of being reviewed for the service they give to someone else," he said.

The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists has also questioned that the website is tied to a health insurance company. The CEO of Whitecoat admits they do have shareholders who are health insurers, but says the business is independently run. 

The association say patients aren't consumers. 

But Dr Lance O'Sullivan, who is working with the programme, disagrees.

"Health is a service, and those that are using it are customers. Now I actually don't believe that we treat people as customers enough," he said. 

If successful here, Whitecoat wants to expand to allow people to book their doctors on the site and even take payments in an aim to move more online.

SHARE ME

More Stories