Partnering with Consumer Reports to Publish MHQP Data

What We Did:

In 2012, MHQP partnered with Consumer Reports, which, for the first time in its history, published patient experience ratings of primary care physician groups in a special version of the magazine for distribution to its subscribers and newsstands in Massachusetts. The cover of the issue highlighted the story “How Does Your Doctor Compare?” and featured a special, 24-page insert with the Ratings of physicians’ practices.

The issue included ratings of 329 adult practices and 158 pediatric practices drawn from MHQP’s statewide patient experience survey. These findings provided important information from the patient’s perspective about how well physicians communicate with their patients, coordinate medical care, know their patients, and whether patients would be willing to recommend their doctor to family and friends.

In 2015, MHQP again partnered with Consumer Reports to publish another special report, this time focused on quality measures for more than 300 local primary care doctors’ offices.  The special issue entitled “Choosing the Right Doctor for You,” featured measures indicating how well the practices provided evidence-based care for cervical and colon cancer screenings, and monitored medications which may be used for heart disease.

Who Was Involved:

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded these special doctor ratings reports. Consumer Reports is the world’s largest independent product-testing organization, with over 8 million subscribers to its magazine, website and other publications.

Why This Work Matters:

These publications were among the first broad-scale opportunities for consumers to make side-by-side comparisons of primary care practices.  The 2012 report validated the importance of patient experience as a valuable point of comparison for consumers. The increased public exposure for MHQP’s patient experience reports offered more opportunities for patients to use this information to make informed choices about their own care and for doctors and their care teams to compare their performance to others and identify areas for improvement.

Related Resources:

• See our joint press release from May 2012
• See the 2012 special report, “How Does Your Doctor Compare?”
• See the 2015 special report, “Choosing the Right Doctor for You”
• Go to HealthcareCompassMA.org, MHQP’s consumer-facing website for comparing primary care doctors’ offices