Finding the Best—A Commitment to Quality and Integrity Best Doctors is committed to identifying the best in medical knowledge and making that knowledge available. We go to extraordinary lengths to ensure the credibility and comprehensiveness of our database of best doctors, to enhance the quality of the information we collect from our doctors, and to keep that information up to date for our customers and clients. In the United States and Canada, Best Doctors commissions an exhaustive, biennial peer review survey of the medical profession that contacts more than 33,000 doctors who were identified in previous surveys as the “best” in their specialties and asks them: “If you or a loved one needed a doctor in your specialty, to whom would you refer them?” A survey is only as good as its participants, and the unique strength of Best Doctors' survey is that only the best participate. The Gold Standard of Doctor Quality Although facilitated by extensive proprietary polling and balloting software, and undertaken on an epic scale, Best Doctors' surveys are designed to mimic the informal, peer-peer referral process that doctors themselves use to determine appropriate specialists for individual cases, a process that is internationally recognized and accepted as the gold standard for identifying top-quality doctors. The difference is that Best Doctors' surveys bring together the insights and experience of tens of thousands of leading specialists and cover more than 400 subspecialties of medicine. Every Best Doctors survey provides as many as a million peer evaluations, with sometimes as many as 200 individual evaluations on a single doctor. Detailed profiles on the doctors in our database are created and maintained. Best Doctors ® Database: An Unparalleled Resource •  Best Doctors' survey process corrects for methodological biases—for example, by identifying suspect voting patterns and weighing votes according to the voter's own rating. •  Best Doctors employs a combination of high-technology surveying methods and person-to-person telephone interviews to encourage more complete and candid responses. •  The broadness and depth of the voting pool help eliminate the biases that mar smaller-scale surveys and the distortion that results from minimal and/or indiscriminate participation from the medical community. •  Best Doctors never takes compensation of any kind from doctors or hospitals in return for listing doctors in its database, nor does Best Doctors pay doctors to participate in its survey process. •  In-depth surveying allows Best Doctors to develop detailed profiles of each of the doctors in its database (e.g. in-office language skills, special areas of research and/or experience, number of procedures performed per year). •  All doctors in our database are checked for licensing and certification requirements and for any disqualifying disciplinary actions. The result is a database of unmatched depth, quality, integrity, and reliability. Back To Top

About Best Doctors  Best Doctors ® , Inc. of Boston, MA and Aiken, SC is the global leader in providing information about, and access to, the best medical care in the U.S. and around the world. For over a decade, the company has been conducting the largest independent surveys of the medical profession to identify the doctors that other doctors consider to be the best in their specialties. The Best Doctors surveys also identify outstanding local primary care physicians. The Best Doctors polling methodology is designed to mimic the informal peer-peer referral process that doctors themselves use to identify appropriate specialists for their patients. The company has expanded beyond this local process to include regional and national groups of physicians. Using extensive proprietary polling and balloting software, the company's peer- reviewed surveys bring together the insights and experience of tens of thousands of leading specialists all over the country, eliminating the biases that can distort smaller-scale surveys. The 2005-2006 Best Doctors in America ® database includes more than 33,000 doctors in 43 specialties and over 400 subspecialties, representing all 50 states and the District of Columbia. These are the doctors that other doctors recognize and turn to for themselves and their families. And since doctors are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed, Best Doctors has gained the respect of the medical profession and patients alike as an unbiased source of top quality medical information. Best Doctors uses its database to support a family of high-touch, as well as web-based services that link individuals with serious illness to these expert medical specialists for second opinions or treatment. The company has developed detailed profiles of the doctors in its database, (special areas of research, diagnoses treated most often, etc), enhancing its ability to guide individuals to the doctors most experienced to advise on and/or treat the illness in question. In addition, all doctors are checked for licensing and certification requirements and for any disqualifying disciplinary actions. Individuals requiring access to these services may contact the company 1-800-223-5003, or through its award-winning web site www.bestdoctors.com. Back To Top

Frequently Asked Questions

Best Doctors, Inc. was founded in 1989 by two renowned physicians affiliated with Harvard Medical School. Their goal was to provide greater access to dependable, high quality medical information and care for individuals with serious illnesses and injuries. That concept continues to propel Best Doctors and has led to their pioneering work being featured on 60 Minutes, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Reader's Digest and CNN . Today, Best Doctors is the world's leading resource for patients, families and physicians seeking expert medical resources and guidance to treat illnesses and injuries of all kinds.

Q: What does Best Doctors offer?

A: Best Doctors helps individuals get the right medical advice as quickly as possible, so they understand whether they have been correctly diagnosed, whether the proposed treatment is correct, and whether they are being treated by physicians who are experts in their given field. Best Doctors services are offered to individuals through employee benefit plans and insurance programs.

Q: How many Best Doctors Physicians are in the U.S. and around the world?

A: The Best Doctors database includes the top 3% to 5% of specialists in each country where Best Doctors is present. Over the past 15 years, Best Doctors has developed a database of over 50,000 specialists in more than 30 countries around the world, in 40 specialties and over 400 subspecialties of medicine. In the United States, Best Doctors surveying and research has identified 33,000 of the best physicians.

Q: How does Best Doctors determine who are the "best" doctors?

A: Best Doctors believes that physicians are the most qualified to evaluate the experience and skill sets of other physicians. The Best Doctors survey asks physicians: "If you or a loved one needed a doctor in your specialty, to whom would you refer them?" The responses form the basis of the Best Doctors' global database, which has been consistently recognized by doctors, patients and the public for its quality and integrity.

Q: Isn't asking "If you or a loved one…" a little simplistic?

A: Actually, by presenting this question Best Doctors is mimicking the informal, peer-to-peer referral process that doctors themselves use to determine the most appropriate physicians for individual cases. Best Doctors' evaluation process is much more complex than this initial question. This process takes place biennially, by physicians included in the Best Doctors database. Specialists complete ballots on other doctors in their own and in related specialties. During this nine to twelve month period, doctors may also nominate and provide information on other physicians who they think should be considered in the peer review process.

Doctors who are included as a result of the peer review are sent surveys which ask very specific questions about their practices. The database is constantly updated by the data from these surveys and by contacts to and from the Best Doctors physicians.

Q: How can Best Doctors avoid reflecting personal bias in the database?

A: There are enough doctors participating in the survey each year to prevent this from happening. Also, Best Doctors' survey expands beyond urban areas to ensure physicians don't see their colleagues voted in year after year.

Q: How do you decide which doctors to survey?

A: The unique strength of the Best Doctors survey is that only the best may participate; only the current Best Doctors physicians receive our survey to nominate and vote. This is not a random survey.

Q: Does Best Doctors pay physicians or can physicians pay Best Doctors to be included?

A: No, Best Doctors does not pay physicians to be in the database. Conversely, a doctor cannot pay to be part of the database. The only way a physician can be listed in the database is to receive a high enough overall score through the peer review polling process.

Q: How do doctors feel about the survey? What's your response rate?

A: The medical community has been very supportive over the nearly 15 years we've administered our survey. We get a 40% response rate, which is remarkably high for polls of this magnitude (pollsters like Gallup or Roper routinely get less than 10%).

Q: How do you know you've found the best doctors?

A: Best Doctors has proprietary software that analyzes the surveys and provides an aggregate score for each physician. This yields a preliminary set of doctors who meet the initial criteria for inclusion. These physicians are then checked for licensure, certification and disciplinary actions. We have developed a system for screening doctors that is unmatched for its rigorousness and accuracy.

Q: Do you recognize Best Doctors from each state?

A: We name Best Doctors in every state, but cities tend to have more Best Doctors than rural areas.

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