Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota has taken an unusual step--it's allowing patients to post provider reviews to a new, dedicated website [1] owned and managed by one of its subsidiaries. Lately, Blue Cross of Minnesota has begun advertising the site on consumer health destinations. So far, the site has collected 130+ healthcare stories, and seen about 9,000 visitors, according to the health plan.

While such reviews can be easily found on a growing number of privately-run sites, such as HealthGrades.com and RateMDs.com, health insurers are far more prone to publish statistical data and provide their own ratings. In fact, to my knowledge, this is a first. (Am I wrong? Let me know [2].)  What's interesting is that the site doesn't scream out that it's owned by a health plan; in fact, it's packaged exactly like the RateMDs.com of the world.

To find out more about the reviews:
- read this St. Paul Pioneer Press article [3] (reg. req.)

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