A new study reveals that when Americans are sick with a respiratory infection, they rate their satisfaction highest when they receive antibiotics from a medical encounter. And they readily penalize the doctor with lower ratings if they do not receive antibiotics. In this study, “...no other factor was as strongly associated with patient satisfaction as whether they received a prescription for an antibiotic.” This leads to perverse incentives for doctors to prescribe, even when no medical indication for antibiotics exists, leading to increased drug resistance which is bad for all of us. The authors suggest “it might be helpful to exclude reviews from respiratory tract infections appointments from providers' overall ratings.” Alternatively, healthcare organizations could transparently rate providers based on metrics of clinical care (which would include appropriate antibiotic prescribing) and share these data with the public. Zoom+Care has rated our quality and shared this data publicly.
Read: Patients Give Doctors High Marks For Prescribing Antibiotics For Common Sniffles