The strong majority of practicing physicians — 79% — have never undergone a peer review, according to Medscape's 2024 "Seeking Fairness and Real Guidance: Medscape Physicians and Peer Reviews Report 2024," published Dec. 4.
Here are eight additional things to know about physicians and peer reviews in 2024:
1. Physicians are the most common initiators of peer reviews against other physicians, doing so in 31% of cases.
2. Sixty percent of physicians said that the overall impact of a peer review was occasional system-level changes or quality improvement results, while 29% said peer reviews resulted in no obvious changes.
3. Most physicians, 38%, said they think peer reviews are initiated to help with overall quality improvement or to avoid possible mistakes in clinical decisions (27%).
4. Almost half of physicians, 44%, believe peer reviews minimize subjectivity and bias.
5. Twenty-seven percent of physicians are very concerned, and 29% are concerned that peer reviews could be misused to punish them. Only 7% said they were not concerned at all.
6. Nearly all physicians believe their workplaces do a good job establishing either a good (44%) or fair (43%) review panel.
7. When asked how consistently peer reviews apply the same standards, 16% of physicians said, "always," 41% said often and 29% said, "sometimes."
8. Most physicians believe that peer reviews give some actionable guidance "sometimes" (49%), "often" (31%) or "always" (6%).