Giving doctors a checkup

Using the Internet, patients can now make sure the medical professionals they are seeing, or considering, are licensed, find out if they have board certification in their specialties, see quality ratings for the hospitals where they practice, get feedback from their patients, and weigh in with their own opinions. Some Web sites, including RateMDs.com and healthgrades.com, are also trying to get at such hard-to-measure issues by collecting patient ratings and asking them to share experiences.