BACKGROUND: The growth in social media (SM) use and consumer-driven health care has led more patients to rate surgeons on physician review websites (PRWs). This study assessed surgeon\'s professional SM presence and its relationship to PRW ratings.
METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study of the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons members as of June 15, 2021. The presence of SM (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, ResearchGate, and personal professional website) and PRW (Google [G], Healthgrades [HG], and Vitals [V]) ratings were collected. Statistical analyses compared PRW ratings among surgeons who did and did not have Any SM, defined as having at least one of the following SM accounts: Facebook; Twitter; Instagram; or YouTube.
RESULTS: Of the 2,455 surgeons, 550 (22%) had Any SM. Compared to surgeons who did not have Any SM, surgeons who had Any SM had significantly higher G, HG, and V overall scores (G:4.1 versus 3.7; HG:4.3 versus 4.1; V:4.0 versus 3.8; P < .01), number of ratings (G:36.9 versus 26.5; HG:56.8 versus 38.3; V:45.6 versus 30.9; P < .01), and number of comments (G:24.4 versus 16.4; HG:35.2 versus 22.0; V:21.5 versus 12.3; P < .01). Surgeons who had Any SM were 1.8 (1.4 to 2.3; P < .01), 1.5 (1.2 to 1.9; P < .01), and 1.5 (1.2 to 1.9; P < .01) times more likely to have a G, HG, and V score of ≥4.0, respectively, than surgeons who did not have Any SM.
CONCLUSIONS: Surgeons who had Any SM demonstrated a significant association with higher PRW overall scores, number of ratings, and number of comments, suggesting that SM presence may increase surgeon PRW ratings.

The Internet is a source of health information for patients. Quality of information available to patients is varied and uncontrolled. Physicians should be familiar with the overall quality of the information. This review provides an evaluation of YouTube\'s current patient accessible health information on the topic of lumbar disc herniation (LDH).
YouTube was queried using 3 different search strings: (1) \"disc herniation\", (2) \"lumbar disc herniation\", or (3) \"lower back disc herniation\". Video duplicates, non-English, or those that contained no audio or were not relevant to LDH were excluded. The first 50 videos per search string were evaluated. Two reviewers independently assessed videos. Parameters included duration, upload date, number of views, number of likes, views per day, and likes per day. A scoring system was used to grade the videos for their performance on diagnosis and treatment of LDH.
The first 50 videos produced a total number of hits of 50,500, 29,100, and 22,100, respectively. Strong agreement, assessed using intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), was demonstrated between readers for both diagnostic scores (ICC 0.921, 95% CI 0.866-0.953) and treatment scores (ICC 0.916, 95% CI 0.855-0.951). Educational Physician videos had significantly greater diagnostic and treatment scores compared to non-physician videos (9.54 vs. 7.05, P = 0.048, and 6.53 vs. 5.3, P = 0.004).
YouTube videos pertaining to LDH were found to have low overall quality. Physicians should be cognizant about information sources readily available to patients as they may influence patient expectations and preconceptions.

OBJECTIVEThe purpose of this study was to assess the impact of certain demographics, social media usage, and physician review website variables for spine surgeons across Healthgrades.com (Healthgrades), Vitals.com (Vitals), and Google.com (Google).METHODSThrough a directory of registered North American Spine Society (NASS) physicians, we identified spine surgeons practicing in Texas (107 neurosurgery trained, 192 orthopedic trained). Three physician rating websites (Healthgrades, Vitals, Google) were accessed to obtain surgeon demographics, training history, practice setting, number of ratings/reviews, and overall score (January 2, 2018-January 16, 2018). Using only the first 10 search results from Google.com, we then identified whether the surgeon had a website presence or an accessible social media account on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Instagram.RESULTSPhysicians with either a personal or institutional website had a higher overall rating on Healthgrades compared to those who did not have a website (p < 0.01). Nearly all spine surgeons had a personal or institutional website (90.3%), and at least 1 accessible social media account was recorded for 43.5% of the spine surgeons in our study cohort (39.5% Facebook, 10.4% Twitter, 2.7% Instagram). Social media presence was not significantly associated with overall ratings across all 3 sites, but it did significantly correlate with more comments on Healthgrades. In multivariable analysis, increasing surgeon age was significantly associated with a lower overall rating across all 3 review sites (p < 0.05). Neurosurgeons had higher overall ratings on Vitals (p = 0.04). Longer wait times were significantly associated with a lower overall rating on Healthgrades (p < 0.0001). Overall ratings from all 3 websites correlated significantly with each other, indicating agreement between physician ratings across different platforms.CONCLUSIONSLonger wait times, increasing physician age, and the absence of a website are indicative of lower online review scores for spine surgeons. Neurosurgery training correlated with a higher overall review score on Vitals. Having an accessible social media account does not appear to influence scores, but it is correlated with increased patient feedback on Healthgrades. Identification of ways to optimize patients\' perception of care are important in the future of performance-based medicine.