Health fund NIB plans to launch a website enabling its customers to rate the performance of Australian health care specialists.

The online service, Whitecoat at www.whitecoat.com.au, is expected to go live at the end of June and will be the first site of its kind in Australia.

It also plans to feature the details of more than 165,000 health care specialists, including optometrists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, dietitians, chiropractors, acupuncturists and dentists but there are no plans to extend Whitecoat to include general practitioners and specialists.

Several health bodies have raised concerns the site may lead to unfair or misleading ratings but NIB’s chief marketing officer Rhod McKensey said the site was not open to reviews from the general public.

"The only way you can make a comment or rank their service is if they are an NIB customer and they have visited that service provider," he said.

Mr McKensey said NIB customers who had visited a service provider would be emailed a survey, asking them to rate the practitioner on a score of one to 10, and then they could place a comment.

"That’s the only way information will be placed on Whitecoat," he said.

"We control the data and we are also very prudent in what information is posted. Any information that’s defamatory or inflammatory is not posted.

"A provider has a week to receive it before it goes live and they get the right to reply to it as well."

Mr McKensey said Whitecoat had been developed in response to customer demand and would enable people to search and compare healthcare specialists in 250,000 locations across Australia.

"Whitecoat will become an invaluable tool for all Australians who are looking to change providers, moving to a new area, or need treatment from a specialist for the first time," he said.