Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North
Carolina will use the firm
behind the Zagat dining guide to run an online survey rating the consumer
experience provided by doctors, North
Carolina's largest health
insurer said Monday.

The Zagat Health Survey gives patients a way to review and evaluate four
non-medical measures of their experience with physicians: trust, communication,
availability and office environment. The survey also allows patients to explain
more about their experience in a comments section, officials said.

The survey is intended only to reflect customer experience with a physician,
not to the quality of care received. The company covers more than 3.7 million
people.

"Customer experience information offered by the Zagat Health Survey tool
complements the clinical quality, cost and other tools we provide to support
consumers' health care decision-making," said Dr. Don Bradley, chief medical
officer for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North
Carolina .

The move is part of a push by insurers and regulators to make the health care
system more transparent for consumers. The North
Carolina Hospital Association
started posting comparisons online last year.

The Zagat consumer survey of doctors was developed for WellPoint Inc., which
runs Blue Cross plans in 14 states, and introduced in Connecticut, Ohio and
metropolitan Los Angeles, WellPoint spokeswoman Jill Becher said Monday.
WellPoint expects to offer the service to other health plans next year, she
said.

Critics question whether limited information on doctors' personalities and
other non-medical factors will really help consumers. Some wonder whether
insurers aiming to control costs will prejudiced the data.

"Consumers have a right to know about their doctors, period," North
Carolina Medical Society chief
executive Robert Seligson said. But "any time data is available, there's
potential for it to be misused or misinterpreted. The information needs to be
accurate and reliable.