After years of complaints from the public about shoddy exams that fail to detect obvious symptoms or involve unnecessary tests, an independent body is preparing to rate hospitals on the quality of their tests and services, sources say.

The results will then be publicized to help citizens make better informed choices about where to go for their checkups.

Begun on a limited scale in September, a full rating program by the Japan Hospital Association will begin in April.

This is the first time assessments of medical institutions offering checkups will be made public. The checks are commonly referred to in Japan as ``human dock'' because of the Japanese expression of ningen dokku, meaning people going to the dock for a checkup, which often lasts half a day or even overnight.

Because patients are not, knowingly at least, sick when most checkups are done, they are not covered by health insurance. However, the majority of health insurance organizations help members cover the costs.

A total of 1,400 of the roughly 2,700 national, public and large privately operated hospitals that are members of the hospital association offer these complete checkups.

The Japanese Society of Human Dry Dock will carry out the assessments, which will be done by studying hospital records and conducting on-site inspections.

Each hospital will be graded in 185 categories in five areas, such as organization, consideration for patients and the quality of the exams.

Among the categories are the number of specialists on staff, attention to equipment maintenance, whether follow-up exams are done, the means of keeping test records and privacy protection.

The society will also check whether specialists themselves examine X-rays and what mechanisms the institution has in place to prevent accidents.

The grades for 74 of the categories will be posted on the society's Web site.

Hospitals that meet a high standard will get a certificate of approval from the association and will be recommended to the National Federation of Health Insurance Societies, made up of corporate health insurance organizations.

The hospitals will be re-assessed every five years.

Until now, assessments done by prefectural and other regional branches of the hospital association were based mainly on a review of existing medical equipment and the number of doctors.

But public complaints have mounted about hospitals using the exams merely as a cash cow and performing slipshod exams that fail to detect symptoms of illness or conducting unnecessary tests.

The assessments, which are based on a uniform standard, began on a limited scale in September. Of the 70 hospitals that have applied to be checked, eight have received approval.

Complete physicals are also offered by smaller and privately run hospitals.(IHT/Asahi: January 6,2005)