We just saw a piece on CNN about how to choose a doctor in which they suggested that people make a bunch of appointments for “a hangnail” and shop around.
“Interview some doctors. Go to them for like, a hangnail or something, and see how they deal with it. Try a couple out. You know, you wouldn’t marry the first person you met, right? So you wouldn’t want to marry the first doctor you met,” said CNN’s Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.
This sounds like, um, expensive advice Liz—and the marriage metaphor is icky.
Can you do better than CNN? Leave some advice in the comments and we’ll post the best submissions. Thanks!
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@Anitra: For an ob/gyn, I e-mailed close to 100 women through a women’s volunteer organization I’m active with. Everyone was super-sympathetic because ob/gyn shopping SUCKS. I got lots of “not so enthused” and “don’t go to HER!” but there were two practices that came out CLEAR winners from my survey, and they were incidentally the two my PCP had recommended as well.
I got much better ob/gyn recs from women who’d given birth, incidentally. They’ve spent a lot more time with their ob/gyns, and been through something fairly stressful!
(I’m a family physician)
I was at a conference, on “The Future of Family Medicine” and the speaker asked the audience “what do patients look for when they search for a doctor.”
People called out things like “intelligence,” “compassion,” etc.
Although those things were in the top ten, the first three were
1. Takes my insurance.
2. Close to where I live/work.
3. Can see me on the same day I call.
Also, ask patients for recommendations, and they will give you a doctor with a lot of people skills. Ask doctors for recommendations, and they usually give you someone really smart/skilled. If someone is recommended by both a doctor, and a patient, that’s who you want.
I asked a co-worker whose opinions I trusted who she went to. Since we both worked at the same place, I knew that whoever it was would take our insurance. That doctor turned out to be a very good one.
When I switched jobs and found that my new insurance wouldn’t cover that doctor I made an appointment with my soon-to-be former doctor and told him I’d have to drop him due to insurance and asked who he’d recommend. His recommendation also turned out to be a good one.
Maybe I’m just lucky but that worked for me.
@mynameisnate – it’s D.O., not O.D. D.O. = Doctor of osteopathy, while O.D. is a reason why you would have to visit either an M.D. or D.O.
I find it interesting that a lot of people evaluate based on last name. I have a foreign last name, but I was raised in this country and scored really high on the verbal sections of my SAT and MCAT, so I theoretically have a better grasp of English than about 99% of the non-foreign sounding Americans, if my percentiles are to be believed.
While I know that proper communication is key to a successful doctor-patient relationship, it’s a wee bit frustrating to know that my name will prescreen me out of many (by the comments anyway) patients’ initial choices.
I just got Aetna insurance through work. I went on the Aetna website to find a primary care doctor in my network, and I discovered that they have a patient rating system. I picked a doctor close to my office with a very high patient rating, and I ended up liking her a lot. The rating system isn’t exactly scientific, but it’s nice to have something to go by.
Wow, you people must be lucky to be able to pick a doctor. Up here in Canada you just take what you can get, there are so few to go around. In fact, doctors interview YOU to see if they want to take you on as a patient.
@mwshook: A doctor seeing a patient on the same day? I’m blown away when that happens. Probably because I’d had prior experiences with doctors where I’d have to make appointments weeks – or sometimes, months – in advance.
@Sonnymooks: If I were to pass judgement like that, I wouldn’t have had the neurologist that I did when I was living in St. Louis. (She was an awesome doctor – kind of wish that I had someone like her, here in California!)
On the other hand, it infuriates me when doctors try to put me on a diet when I come in for the flu.
@femmeknitzi1: Oh, I KNOW. Don’t tell me you can’t (won’t) figure out why the back of my throat is swelling up and then go on about my weight. Unless my weight is why I am currently choking on my uva then let’s stay focused on the problem here, mkay?
I find it interesting that a lot of people evaluate based on last name.
@ohnoes: Yeah, that’s kind of stupid really.
@Murph1908:
Except that the insurance company doesn’t pay it. You pay it, if you’re a cash customer, but UHC (for example) only pays $30-$40.
@Sonnymooks:
This is the problem with Affirmative Action. Years ago, it was a _necessity_, since a black person couldn’t get into ANY non-black school without AA, regardless of ability. You also had to protect the black students from poor professors who would grade based on race.
Now, it isn’t a big deal – if you can pay, they’ll let you in. Now, AA hurts because of the above. People think that AA simply “evens the playing field” for less-qualified candidates, as opposed to countering racism, since a qualified candidate is going to get in regardless of race. On a less-obvious front, it “helps” white people get ahead – people see AA as forcing out the less-qualified white candidates in favor of the minority candidates, so “obviously” the white graduates are the cream-of-the-crop. To some extent, this is true – the white candidates are probably going to be better. Among white candidates. It doesn’t mean that the black candidates are any worse, and it also doesn’t mean that the worst white candidate is necessarily going to be any better than the worst black candidate.
The white candidates may indeed be the “cream of the crop,” but if all the black candidates outperform them, the choice is obvious.
@Sherryness:
Age works, too. You want an older doctor for a primary-care physician, but you want a younger doctor when searching for a specialist.
Why the former? Because an older doctor is more likely to have seen it all. Your primary care physician really doesn’t have any need to be “up” on all the latest news.
Why the latter? Because a younger doctor is more likely to read everything, and is going to be more willing to listen to information on newer treatments. You’re probably not going to get an older physician who spends late nights browing around PubMed.
@bbbici:
On the flip side, I had to wait two hours in the emergency room when I was having SEVERE chest pains (pericarditis) and still had to pay $1600.
One final point: Ask your doctor about Homeopathy and Alternative Medicine.
If they say anything favorable that doesn’t include the word “placebo,” you need to drop them like a frigging ROCK. Weasel-words need to be clarified, since they may think you’re a homeopathic wackjob and don’t want to scare you away from valuable medical advice.
And please report them on RateMD so that the rest of us will know about it.
I look at the list of doctors, and find one close by with a very foreign name. Hopefully they’ve gone to medical school in some other country, and are as little like American doctors as possible.
This has served me well. I change jobs/insurance a lot, so I’m choosing a new doctor every other year or so.
I’ve been so lucky in the past that I’m actually slightly nervous about finding a new doctor. I definitely think I’ll try some of the screening processes suggested by people here: insurance/work/google/journals (wouldn’t have thought of that one).
There are also sort of “deal breakers” for me. I’m not big on drugs so I’d ask on the first appointment how quick they’d be to prescribe them for various conditions. I like doctors to wear the white coat, even if it’s open. I had a creepy doctor who didn’t wear it, and seriously, it was like having my teacher examine my back. Very creepy.