External Medical Peer Review or Internal Medical Peer Review - Which Is Better?

Are you the owner of your own medical practice? If you are, you may be interested in having your medical practice undergo a medical review, as many medical practice owners do at one point or another. Having your medical office reviewed allows you to examine the overall functioning of your business, to see if it is living up to your hopes or your expectations.

When it comes to having your medical practice reviewed, you will find that you have a number of different options. Two of those options include an external medical peer review or an internal medical peer review. An external medical peer review is defined as a medical review that is done by an outside company, one that isnt connected to your medical practice or your staff in anyway. An internal medical peer review is where you and your staff all rate and review each other and the medical practice in general.

Now that you know exactly what an internal medical peer review is, as well as an external medical peer review, you may be wondering which type of review would be best for you and your medical practice. In all honesty, it depends. It depends on what you are looking to accomplish, as well as your resources. For instance, if you are interested in getting an unbiased opinion, you may want to use the services of an outside medical reviewing company. However, you will need to find a company to do business with, as well as pay for their services. If you do not think that you can do this, you may want to stick to an internal medical peer review.

Although internal medical peer reviews are okay and actually used by many medical professionals, there is some controversy that surrounds them. As it was previously mentioned, an internal medical peer review is when you and your staff rate and review each other. Now, if you have a small medical practice, some of your staff may feel uncomfortable rating and reviewing each other, even if the reviews were supposed to be anonymous. Also, you run into the problem of friendships, where one coworker may be unable to give an unbiased review of one of their friends or even someone who they dont really like working with. These are important points that you should keep in mind, when examining internal medical peer reviews.

Since there are a number of pros and cons to both external medical peer reviews and internal medical peer reviews, you may want to think about speaking with your staff for suggestions. Asking your staff if they mind rating each other and if they could do so without any bias may be helpful to you and your decision. You may even find that some of your employees would actually prefer to be reviewed by an external medical peer review company.

Written by Damien Scher. Find the latest information on Medical Peer Review