Super Docs and Top Docs Lists – What Does it Really Mean?

I just got a congratulatory email from a favorite patient of mine. Apparently, I have been listed in today’s New York Times Magazine as a Super Doctor, “one of the top 5% of New York City physicians in more than 30 specialties“.

I have never heard of Super Doctors, and have no idea how I made the list, especially given what I perceive as a marked absence of some of the best docs I know from the list. I also note that the Super Doctors list is not published by the New York Times per se. It is paid advertising. You know, one of those special “Pull Out” sections of the magazine.

Super Doctors is published by Key Professional Media, which also publishes “Super Lawyers” and “Super Dentists”. The Super Doctor list is generated from surveys of physicians, who are asked to list docs to whom they would send a family member. The list is then vetted by the top ranked members of the list, which seems a rather odd process to me. Super Docs then proceeds to sell ad space in the publication to the members of the list. (St Lukes/Beth Israel and Lenox Hill Hospital seem to have bought most of the ad space in this issue.)

Super Doctors appears to be setting themselves up as the major competitor to Castle Connolly’s America’s Top Doctors, another “Best Doc” list generated annually from surveys of physicians. Here in New York, New York Magazine publishes the Top Doctor list every year, and then of course, sells ad space in the publication to the members of the list. In Philly, Philadelphia Magazine publishes the list, and I suspect each town has their local publication that does the same thing.

The difference between Super Doctors and Castle Connolly’s Top Doctors is that the Top Doctors list is published jointly with the magazine in which it resides, as opposed to being just paid ad space there. Although Castle Connolly’s list is much larger and more comprehensive than Super Doctors, the Top Doctor list published in New York Magazine is only abbreviated version of Castle Connolly’s results. If you want to see the entire list, you have to purchase Castle Connolly’s book. Since most patients do not purchase the book, the magazine version becomes, in effect, the definitive list of Top Doctors. Which gives New York magazine an incredibly powerful position in the final vetting, a process they do not reveal in any detail.

I have always had very mixed feelings about these “best” lists. (Although I have to admit, I was always jealous of the docs who got listed.) Do these lists really measure quality? I don’t think they do. If there is no vetting of who gets the surveys in the first place, then the results are really just a mish-mash of referral patterns across and between specialties. I’ve always been surprised at seeing who is on and off Castle-Connolly’s list in New York Magazine, since it seems more hit and miss than anything else.

I don’t remember, but I probably got a Super Doctor survey and threw it out at some point. Which may explain why so few of the amazing docs I know are in the list. I do recall getting a request to purchase ad space on the list, which I know I threw out. I guess the fact that I am still listed despite not buying ad space means the process is not entirely ad-driven.

Despite my mixed feelings, I would like to thank all the docs who listed me in their survey, whoever you are. I promise next year I’ll fill mine out so at least the great docs I know will get a shot at making the Super Doctor list.

Whatever it means.