There are several easy ways to find physicians, but not all are
good ways. If you need to find a new doctor, consider:
1. Get a recommendation from friends. This seems old fashioned,
but it's probably the best way to find a doctor. Your friends will
give you unvarnished opinions of accessibility, bed side manner
and thoroughness. Equally important, if you ask co-workers, they
likely share the same insurance plan, so the physician they recommend
is likely part of your plan. The one drawback is you might end up
sitting in the waiting room with your co-worker while you each wait
for your annual pap - maybe not such a comfortable situation.
2. Get a physician recommendation. This is especially helpful
if you are looking for specialty care. Your primary care physician
knows the reputation of most of the specialists in the area. However,
there are limitations to this approach. First, physicians don't
usually know what insurance plans other doctors use. Second, they
sometimes have other interests - for example if they get a lot of
referrals from a particular physician, they might want to reciprocate
by sending you to that physician, whether or not that physician
is the best for you.
3. Find a doctor on a list of physician from your insurance
provider. While this approach is sometimes necessary, it can
be frustrating. You'll be able to find a doctor on your health plan,
but you won't have any idea if the physician is a good fit for you.
If you have to go this route, consider some of the evaluation methods
listed below.
4. Use an online doctor finder. These can be useful tools
to find a doctor, but suffer from the drawbacks of not knowing what
insurance plans the doctor takes before hand, and not knowing if
they're a good fit for you. There are however, several doctor locator
websites, including the American
Medical Association's Doctor Finder for patients and the Physician's
Directory from WebMD.
How to evaluate a physician
Once you've identified a few possible doctors, you'll need to find
out more about them. Here are some basic ways to go about that.
1. Do they have any disciplinary actions by your state's licensing
board? This is usually an easy question to answer for free.
State governments have websites on which they list all the physicians
licensed to practice in the state, and also list if there have been
any serious disclipinary actions take against the physician. Finding
your state's licensing website might take some digging. The Colorado
website, for example, can be found at the Colorado
Division of Registrations.
If you don't want to search around, and are willing to pay a small
fee, you can also get this information from companies like HealthGrades,
that even sometimes have patient-written reviews on a physician.
2. Do they work out of good hospitals? Ask your physician
which hospitals they work out of - then check the hospitals out
at the NetDoc.com Hospital
Ratings tool. If the physician would admit you to only low-ranked
hospitals, you might want to pass.
3. Interview the physician. Don't be afraid to set up an
initial meeting with the potential physician to find out about their
philosphy on medicine, if you click with them, and what the office
environment is like. A 15-minute meeting will tell you a lot about
the person to whom you might entrust your life.
4. Do an online search on the physician's name. There's
a lot you can find out about physicians
online.
Other Resources
Find
a Doctor - tools and methods for locating the right physician
for you and your family.
