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Doctor rating websites are a burgeoning trend, yet little is known about their content.

To explore the content of Internet reviews about primary care physicians.

Qualitative content analysis of 712 online reviews from two rating websites. We purposively sampled reviews of 445 primary care doctors (internists and family practitioners) from four geographically dispersed U.S. urban locations. We report the major themes, and because this is a large sample, the frequencies of domains within our coding scheme.

Most reviews (63%) were positive, recommending the physician. We found a major distinction between global reviews, “Dr. B is a great doctor.” vs. specific descriptions which included interpersonal manner, “She always listens to what I …