Best Doctors, a leading independent medical referral company in the US, has embarked on a world-wide peer-review survey of medical communities to develop reliable, in-depth information on doctor quality.
Currently available to Europeans through insurance giants Winterthur and Generali, this information allows consumers to identify and access the “best” medical care no matter where they are located throughout the world.
The first phase of the global project has been completed, creating detailed databases of doctors who have been named as the best in their specialities by their fellow specialists.
Countries surveyed include, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, the United Kingdom, Austria, Germany, Spain, Italy, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Mexico and Canada.
More than 30,000 of the world’s leading doctors have taken part in the company’s surveys.
Using specially developed software that recognises more than 450 sub-specialities, each year the company sends customised ballots based on speciality, geography and level of expertise to more than 45,000 leading doctors in the US. The doctors are asked to evaluate their peers on the basis of the question: “If you or a family member needed a doctor in your speciality, to whom would you refer them?”
The company’s databases are available to consumers, insurers and multi-national corporations through both web-based and nurse-assisted searches.
Best Doctors’ president Todd Farha said: “We expanded into the international arena based on sheer demand. There was very little information like this in the USA when we started, and there is virtually nothing like it in the world.”