Finding a new doctor

Back in the old days, before you were forced to switch doctors every time you switched jobs or your employer switched health plans, life seemed much simpler. You found a doctor you liked and you stuck with him or her until you, or the doctor, died. Today, people change doctors as frequently as light bulbs. That makes it even more important that consumers have good information about doctors - family doctors and specialists - at hand.
Things have improved on that front in the past few years. The state has a useful Web site, www.njdoctorlist.com, that provides current information on doctors' medical training, certifications and hospital affiliations The site also includes malpractice payments paid out by the doctors in the last five years, and how that number compares to the specialty average, and disciplinary actions that have been taken against them.
The site does not tell you anything about doctors' bedside manners or how they run their offices - important considerations to many patients. A new Web site, ratemd.com, http://www.ratemd.com/index.jsp, has been created to help fill that gap. Similar to the ratemyprofessor.com Web site, http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/index.jsp, which allows college students to evaluate their professors and read comments from other students about them, ratemd.com lets patients rate their doctors. Unfortunately, unlike ratemyprofessor.com, the site doesn't have enough traffic yet to make it terribly useful. Many doctors aren't rated at all, and most have generated only a handful of comments. The concept is workable, however, and if more people participate the site will be a worthy adjunct to those that focus on credentials.