The North Shore-LIJ Medical Group, one of the nation’s largest multi-specialty group practices, and a member of the Council of Accountable Physician Practices, recently began posting online patient reviews of its doctors, the first large medical group in the New York metropolitan area to do so.

Consistent with its commitment to quality care and transparency, North Shore-LIJ Medical Group ratings are based upon actual surveys that are collected and monitored by a certified U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) vendor, Press Ganey. This is in contrast to Yelp, Healthgrades and other physician rating sites that are open to anyone to rate a doctor, whether they saw the doctor or not. North Shore-LIJ’s “Find a Doctor” profile pages provide consumers with feedback from actual patients on physicians practicing in one of the health system’s more than 400 Medical Group offices throughout the metropolitan area. North Shore-LIJ’s Patient Satisfaction Review Program displays ratings and comments compiled from the more than 500,000 surveys randomly administered by Press Ganey, a South Bend, IN firm that works with more than 10,000 health care organizations worldwide.

“We are using transparency as an innovative approach to continuously improving as we strive to exceed our patients’ expectations,” said Ira Nash, MD, a practicing cardiologist and senior vice president and executive director of the North Shore-LIJ Medical Group, the nation’s seventh-largest physician practice. “This new site is truly the voice of the patients. It’s a trusted source of information on our doctors, as compared to comments and ratings on other physician review websites that can’t be verified.”

Greater transparency is a cornerstone of recent healthcare legislation. North Shore-LIJ Medical Group is proud to be in the forefront as it makes individual physician reviews public, extending well beyond national mandates.

According to Press Ganey, the North Shore-LIJ Medical Group is one of a handful of large medical group practices in the US to post patient satisfaction scores and only the second in the Northeast.

While the North Shore-LIJ Medical Group includes more than 2,300 physicians, the ratings are available for the more than 900 doctors who provide care in ambulatory medical practice settings, mostly in outpatient offices outside the health system’s 19 hospitals. It does not include specialists such as radiologists, pathologists and other physicians such as neonatologists and hospitalists who provide patient care only in inpatient settings. The Medical Group has spent the past two years preparing for the public rollout of the new ratings site, working in collaboration with Press Ganey and physician leaders.

“We recognize that patients have many options for their care.  We also believe that a positive patient-physician dynamic is central to great care. By being transparent with our patient satisfaction ratings, we are providing our patients with validated information that helps them choose the physicians that best meets their needs,” said Dr. Nash.

Also read Dr. Nash’s article on “Why Physicians Hate ‘Patient Satisfaction but Shouldn’t” in the September 8, 2015 edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine.