Can Consumers Use Online Reviews to Avoid Unsuitable Doctors? Evidence From RateMDs.com and the Federation of State Medical Boards
研究在线评论能否预测医生是否不适合执业，发现评论中确实包含医生适合性的信号，对消费者选择、监管监督和经济理论有启示。
ABSTRACT It is difficult to assess a doctor's quality. According to theory, doctors provide a classic credence service, in which the quality of the service is difficult or impossible to determine even after its consumption. We challenge the notion that doctors are pure credence goods by analyzing the power of online reviews to predict whether a doctor is unsuitable for medical practice. We use doctor ratings as inputs to our model despite strong debate regarding their informational value in healthcare. We use state medical board sanctions as a signal of doctors’ suitability to practice. We find predictive power in our models: there is indeed a signal of underlying doctor suitability in online ratings. Implications for consumer choice, regulatory surveillance, economic theory, and the usefulness of predictive modeling are discussed.