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Can Consumers Use Online Reviews to Avoid Unsuitable Doctors? Evidence From RateMDs.com and the Federation of State Medical Boards
Author(s) -
Lantzy Shan,
Anderson David
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
decision sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.238
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1540-5915
pISSN - 0011-7315
DOI - 10.1111/deci.12398
Subject(s) - credence good , credence , predictive power , quality (philosophy) , sanctions , consumption (sociology) , service (business) , business , health care , state (computer science) , marketing , information asymmetry , actuarial science , economics , computer science , microeconomics , political science , law , sociology , economic growth , social science , philosophy , epistemology , algorithm , machine learning
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.