See How Your Surgeon Rates

Two nonprofits help patients select surgeons based on complication and death rates.

Surgeon wearing a surgical mask and glasses in operating room
(Image credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Two nonprofit groups have launched separate Web sites to help patients vet surgeons. Each site analyzes Medicare data to evaluate surgeons based on complication and death rates for operations ranging from gall-bladder removal to knee replacement.

Surgeon Ratings, from Consumers’ Checkbook, identifies surgeons with better-than-average outcomes for 14 types of surgery. The difference between the best- and worst-performing docs is significant. Adjusting for age, health and other factors, patients of the top 10% of heart-valve and bypass surgeons had death rates of less than 3%, for example, compared with 11% for the worst 10% of docs.

Surgeon Scorecard, from investigative news agency ProPublica, is a database of nearly 17,000 surgeons, evaluated on their results for eight common procedures. ProPublica found that 11% of docs accounted for about 25% of complications.

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Critics say Medicare info is insufficient to make judgments about outcomes. But Checkbook’s Robert Krughoff says Medicare claims correlate with more extensive records.

Anne Kates Smith
Executive Editor, Kiplinger's Personal Finance

Anne Kates Smith brings Wall Street to Main Street, with decades of experience covering investments and personal finance for real people trying to navigate fast-changing markets, preserve financial security or plan for the future. She oversees the magazine's investing coverage,  authors Kiplinger’s biannual stock-market outlooks and writes the "Your Mind and Your Money" column, a take on behavioral finance and how investors can get out of their own way. Smith began her journalism career as a writer and columnist for USA Today. Prior to joining Kiplinger, she was a senior editor at U.S. News & World Report and a contributing columnist for TheStreet. Smith is a graduate of St. John's College in Annapolis, Md., the third-oldest college in America.