Search engine systems for matching medical providers and patients

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by one or more computing devices of a matching-engine system, a search query from a client device of a user of the matching-engine system, the search query comprising:

a geographic location of the user;

a preferred date and time for an appointment for the user; and

one or more of a user-specified symptom or a user-specified treatment;

determining, by one or more of the computing devices, at least one base-concept based on the search query, the base-concept comprising a medical diagnosis or a medical procedure;

identifying, by one or more of the computing devices, a set of one or more physicians to be recommended to the user based at least in part on:

a geographic location of each of the one or more physicians;

an availability of each of the one or more physicians with respect to the preferred date and time for the appointment for the user;

a performance-score of each of the one or more physicians associated with the base-concept, wherein the performance-score is calculated based on a weighted aggregate of individual performance-scores for one or more sub-concepts of the base-concept, wherein the individual performance-scores are calculated by:

(1) accessing one or more Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes based on claims data received from the physician, wherein the CPT codes refer to a medical service provided by the physician in connection with the one or more sub-concepts;

(2) determining one or more relative value units (RVUs) corresponding to the one or more CPT codes, wherein the RVUs corresponding to a CPT code represents a location-independent measure of overall resources used for the medical service;

(3) calculating a physician-cost-factor for the physician associated with the one or more sub-concepts, wherein the physician-cost-factor is based on the RVUs corresponding to the medical service provided by the physician for the one or more sub-concepts;

(4) accessing an average cost factor associated with the one or more sub-concepts for a plurality of physicians, wherein the physician and the plurality of physicians share a common specialty and common geographic location; and

(5) comparing the physician-cost-factor with the average cost factor, wherein the individual performance-score for the physician for the one or more sub-concepts is increased if the physician-cost-factor is lower than the average cost factor;

a readmission rate of each of the one or more physicians;

a reinfection rate of each of the one or more physicians;

an average length-of-stay for patients of each of the one or more physicians;

a relative invasiveness of procedures of each of the one or more physicians; and

a rating of a healthcare facility associated with each of the one or more physicians; and

sending, by one or more computing devices, a search-results page to a client device of the user, the search-results page comprising references to one or more of the physicians in the set of physicians.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the readmission rate for a particular physician is a rate at which patients treated by the particular physician are readmitted to a healthcare facility within a particular period of time of receiving treatment from the particular physician.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the average length-of-stay for a particular physician comprises an average amount of time of the length-of-stay in a healthcare facility for patients seen by the particular physician for the base-concept.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the reinfection rate for a particular physician comprises a rate at which patients treated by the particular physician are diagnosed with an infection or other post-treatment complications within a particular period of time of receiving treatment from the particular physician.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the relative invasiveness of procedures for a particular physician is based on an invasiveness value associated with treatments performed by the particular physician within a particular period of time.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying the set of one or more physicians is further based on a score associated with each physician, and a higher rating for the healthcare facility associated with a particular physician increases the score for the particular physician.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein each physician in the set is associated with:

a performance-score associated with the base-concept within a range of acceptable performance-scores; and

an experience-score associated with the base-concept within a range of acceptable experience-scores.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the experience-score is based at least in part on a volume of cases seen by the physician, a severity associated with each case seen by the physician, and a variety of cases seen by the physician.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the volume of cases and the variety of cases comprises cases in a condition group common to a condition group associated with the base-concept.

10. The method of claim 7 , wherein the set of one or more physicians is ranked for presentation based at least in part on the performance-score and experience-score of each physician.

11. The method of claim 7 , wherein the experience-score is determined by an experience-engine of the matching-engine system based at least in part on one or more International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes received from a physician or health-care provider, wherein each ICD code corresponds to a medical diagnosis associated with a patient.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the common geographic location comprises:

a metropolitan statistical area; or

a geographic location defined by the user.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the cost factors comprise a monetary cost for treating the base-concept.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the cost factors comprise one or more relative value units (RVU) corresponding to one or more procedure codes associated with the base-concept.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the performance-score is further based on one or more sub-concepts associated with the base-concept, the sub-concept being determined by a user history or user input of additional user-specified symptoms or user-specified treatments.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining the base-concept is based on user input of the user-specified treatment or user-specified symptoms, and a clinical taxonomy for translating the user input to a defined base-concept.

17. One or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media embodying software that is operable when executed to:

receive a search query from a client device of a user of the matching-engine system, the search query comprising:

a geographic location of the user;

a preferred date and time for an appointment for the user; and

one or more of a user-specified symptom or a user-specified treatment;

determine at least one base-concept based on the search query, the base-concept comprising a medical diagnosis or a medical procedure;

identify a set of one or more physicians to be recommended to the user based at least in part on:

a geographic location of each of the one or more physicians;

an availability of each of the one or more physicians with respect to the preferred date and time for the appointment for the user;

a performance-score of each of the one or more physicians associated with the base-concept, wherein the performance-score is calculated based on a weighted aggregate of individual performance-scores for one or more sub-concepts of the base-concept, wherein the individual performance-scores are calculated by:

(1) accessing one or more Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes based on claims data received from the physician, wherein the CPT codes refer to a medical service provided by the physician in connection with the one or more sub-concepts;

(2) determining one or more relative value units (RVUs) corresponding to the one or more CPT codes, wherein the RVUs corresponding to a CPT code represents a location-independent measure of overall resources used for the medical service;

(3) calculating a physician-cost-factor for the physician associated with the one or more sub-concepts, wherein the physician-cost-factor is based on the RVUs corresponding to the medical service provided by the physician for the one or more sub-concepts;

(4) accessing an average cost factor associated with the one or more sub-concepts for a plurality of physicians, wherein the physician and the plurality of physicians share a common specialty and common geographic location; and

(5) comparing the physician-cost-factor with the average cost factor, wherein the individual performance-score for the physician for the one or more sub-concepts is increased if the physician-cost-factor is lower than the average cost factor;

a readmission rate of each of the one or more physicians;

a reinfection rate of each of the one or more physicians;

an average length-of-stay for patients of each of the one or more physicians;

a relative invasiveness of procedures of each of the one or more physicians; and

a rating of a healthcare facility associated with each of the one or more physicians; and

send a search-results page to a client device of the user, the search-results page comprising references to one or more of the physicians in the set of physicians.

18. A system comprising:

one or more processors; and

a memory coupled to the processors comprising instructions executable by the processors, the processors being operable when executing the instructions to:

receive a search query from a client device of a user of the matching-engine system, the search query comprising:

a geographic location of the user;

a preferred date and time for an appointment for the user; and

one or more of a user-specified symptom or a user-specified treatment;

determine at least one base-concept based on the search query, the base-concept comprising a medical diagnosis or a medical procedure;

identify a set of one or more physicians to be recommended to the user based at least in part on:

a geographic location of each of the one or more physicians;

an availability of each of the one or more physicians with respect to the preferred date and time for the appointment for the user;

a performance-score of each of the one or more physicians associated with the base-concept, wherein the performance-score is calculated based on a weighted aggregate of individual performance-scores for one or more sub-concepts of the base-concept, wherein the individual performance-scores are calculated by:

(1) accessing one or more Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes based on claims data received from the physician, wherein the CPT codes refer to a medical service provided by the physician in connection with the one or more sub-concepts;

(2) determining one or more relative value units (RVUs) corresponding to the one or more CPT codes, wherein the RVUs corresponding to a CPT code represents a location-independent measure of overall resources used for the medical service;

(3) calculating a physician-cost-factor for the physician associated with the one or more sub-concepts, wherein the physician-cost-factor is based on the RVUs corresponding to the medical service provided by the physician for the one or more sub-concepts;

(4) accessing an average cost factor associated with the one or more sub-concepts for a plurality of physicians, wherein the physician and the plurality of physicians share a common specialty and common geographic location; and

(5) comparing the physician-cost-factor with the average cost factor, wherein the individual performance-score for the physician for the one or more sub-concepts is increased if the physician-cost-factor is lower than the average cost factor;

a readmission rate of each of the one or more physicians;

a reinfection rate of each of the one or more physicians;

an average length-of-stay for patients of each of the one or more physicians;

a relative invasiveness of procedures of each of the one or more physicians; and

a rating of a healthcare facility associated with each of the one or more physicians; and

send a search-results page to a client device of the user, the search-results page comprising references to one or more of the physicians in the set of physicians.