Local business review site, Insider Pages, has launched Doctor Finder, a new tool aimed at making it easier to find medical specialists based on a variety of criteria.

WebProNews spoke with Eric Peacock, General Manager, Insider Pages about the new Doctor Finder tool.

Peacock said the Web has made it increasingly easy to find recommendations for things like restaurants and hair salons, but it has largely failed at making it easy to choose a doctor.

"To make an informed choice you really need to have at least three types of information in addition to basic data on the doctor's specialty and address. The three things are: insurance accepted by that doctor, patient reviews, and objective, third-party validation of the doctor's credentials and record (e.g. Doctor is free of malpractice or sanctions against their record)," said Peacock.   

"The fact is, people probably spend more time picking out a flat screen TV than they do a doctor because it's been so difficult to find the information you need about a doctor in one place. As a result, most people end up on their health insurance website and settle with picking a doctor based on how close the physician is to their office or home.  They don't necessarily get patient reviews or know anything about the doctor."

Peacock said Insider Pages wanted to put medical information in one place and make it searchable using Doctor Finder.

. "So now, for example, if you want to find a board certified, female ob/gyn that accepts Blue Cross, has a clean record and is within two miles of your office - you can do that search in a few seconds using the Doctor Finder," said Peacock.

Peacock said the advantage to using Doctor Finder over a search engine like Google, is it's a more specialized type of local search.

"Most of our health related traffic comes from people who have started their search on Google but ended up on Insider Pages because they want to be able to use a finer filter for narrowing down the list of potential doctors," said Peacock.

"Google doesn't specialize in helping you find a doctor based on filters like health insurance, gender, patient rating, proximity to your home or office, track record and the like."

Through a partnership with HealthGrades, a healthcare ratings organization, Insider Pages offers users access to 1.2 million patient ratings and 15 data points on more than 800,000 doctors.