Anonymous, unverified doctor reviews, with placement and even takedowns once for sale.
What it's really for Anonymous, unverified doctor reviews; doctors can pay for placement, and once could pay to hide some reviews.
What our grade covers The grade on this page is about its anonymous patient star ratings of doctors, not everything the site does.
High Scoring Confidence Checked against primary sources. We are confident in the facts and the grade here.
The parties paying most are the listed doctors themselves: paying subscribers buy banner ads on competitors' profiles, removal of competitors' ads from their own page, "top 10" page placement, and the ability to pin a favorable "Featured Rating," directly tying payment to higher visibility on the parties RateMDs ranks (and until August 2019 paying subscribers could even hide up to three negative reviews, which Canada's Privacy Commissioner ruled an improper "pay-for-takedown").
Source →- Operating since
- 2004 (22 years) · source
- What it costs you
- Free to read The reviews are free to read.
- How they make money
- It makes money from on-site advertising and from monthly subscriptions sold to the doctors it lists (Promoted at $179/mo and Promoted+ at $359/mo).
- What they do
- RateMDs hosts anonymous patient star-ratings and written reviews of individual doctors and other health professionals.
- What to watch for
- Reviews are anonymous and unverified (no proof the reviewer was ever a patient), and a doctor's prominence on the page can be bought, so a glowing or sparse profile may reflect paid promotion or reputation management rather than real patient experience.
- Composite score
- 1.60 / 5.00 → grade D
How the grade was reached
Does the site take money from the very entities it ranks? Pay-for-placement, vendor-funded data, and affiliate commissions all pull this down. The less the ranking can be bought, the higher the score.
What is the ranking actually built on? Hands-on testing scores highest, then verified first-hand reviews, then opinion or popularity surveys and self-reported figures, then pay-to-rank, which scores lowest.
Is the methodology published, specific, and reproducible? Can a reader see how a given rank was reached, or is it a black box?
Are commercial relationships, sponsorships, and affiliate arrangements disclosed clearly and near the rankings themselves, rather than buried?
How hard is it to game? Controls against fake reviews, solicited reviews, and vendor gaming raise this; an open box anyone can stuff lowers it.
Evidence
- RateMDs.com was established in 2004 by John Swapceinski in San Jose, California; VerticalScope Inc. acquired the platform in 2014, and the site earns revenue from advertising and from optional paid subscription plans for healthcare providers. In August 2019 it removed the 'Rating Manager' feature that had let providers pay to hide ratings. Source: Wikipedia — RateMDs.com →
- Promoted/Promoted+ subscribers get exclusive tools including a 'Featured Rating' (ability to pin a top review), 'Brand Blocking' to remove competitor suggestions, targeted banner advertisements in additional cities, and (Promoted+) enhanced banner ads with upgraded action buttons — i.e., paying buys greater visibility and control over what appears on the profile. Source: RateMDs Help Center — Promoted/Promoted+ exclusive tools and features →
- On June 30, 2020 the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada found that RateMDs' subscription-based 'pay-for-takedown' feature — which let health professionals hide up to three negative comments — was an unreasonable practice in contravention of section 5(3) of PIPEDA; the company replaced it with 'Ratings Concierge,' which eliminates the ability of subscribers to hide reviews. Source: Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada — PIPEDA Findings #2020-002 →