searching for a primary care doc

[kaysixteen]

So it now seems clear to me that I will be needing, barring a few last minute details that I need to work out, a new PCP, because, well, there does come a time when incompetence and unconcern for one's patients gets to the point where it can no longer be accepted.  Ah well.  So tonight I log onto my health ins co's www site to see what would be available.   Imagine my surprise to learn that there are, within just 10 miles  of my city, a full 265 PCPs practicing here, that my ins plan will accept.  And there was no way I could see on the www site to try to narrow down this number by selecting out for characteristics of the PCP practices, such as secondary specialty, etc.   So choosing randomly amongst this number would be nigh onto impossible, and I ain't gonna play pin the tail on the donkey either.  I will ask around town with reliable people, for recommendations, of course, but does anyone have any other suggestions as to how I could focus on choosing a new doc from amongst this horde?

[clean]

Id ask my coworkers of a similar age and condition who they see. 

Is there a description on the pages that show which ones are accepting new patients?  Not all may be looking for new folks.

[lightning]

I'm with clean. Most of those providers that are listed will probably not be accepting new patients. Filter first for availability. You'll probably have to make a lot of phone calls. I'd go with proximity next. Online reviews can be helpful, but I would take those reviews with a grain of salt.

[Parasaurolophus]

Chiming the others. I think this is a good move! And you'll have to filter people out after you've had a chance to talk to them a few times, too. It can be a long process.

Online reviews can be helpful, but I would take those reviews with a grain of salt.

This is absolutely true, but I would also definitely google my top choices to make sure nothing worrying comes up. When I was looking for us, I found several (like, four, out of maybe nine doctors in the area taking patients) who had been accused of assault by female patients, and who'd been bouncing around different practices for a few years. I cut them right out. But I also filtered out men in general, because they do. Not. Listen.

[Langue_doc]

Try the website Zocdoc. You can search by condition, location, and insurance. There are also reviews for each professional.

[spork]

Try the website Zocdoc. You can search by condition, location, and insurance. There are also reviews for each professional.

Zocdoc's website seems to only list medical service providers who are in some way affiliated with the company.

If you know any nurses, PAs, etc., ask them for recommendations. They often know the inside scoop.

[Ruralguy]

Get a lawyer friend to run a LexisNexis search on them. You don't want DUI doc treating you. I don't.

[mythbuster]

In terms of easily accessible information, you should be able to access their education history, including residency, if they are board certified, and often if they have "interests" in certain sub-fields/ diseases etc. This is likely available on your insurance portal web page. Given your issues I might see if there is someone who lists your issues as one of their interests/ specialties. Especially of the issues are out of the ordinary. It's good to remember that really smart kids often opt to attend med school at the state schools to save $$. I often look for those who graduated from our state flagship med school and have had good luck so far.  I would also look for a doctor who graduated med school prior to about 2015. That would mean they have been in practice/ out of residency long enough to have some real clinical experience.
   July 1 is the magic date for doctor turnover, as it's when all the new interns and residents start. So you might call up the local clinic you would like to join and see if they have new doctors starting soon. Not just the new residents, but the "veteran" doctors often turn over then as well. Good luck!

[Langue_doc]

I've had very good luck with Zocdoc for at least two of the specialists who are currently treating me. The physicians I found through referrals also have good reviews on Zocdoc, so I have no complaints. Read the reviews, and also look for corroboration.

[kaysixteen]

Random observations and serious, sincere questions:

1) The way my ins co's www site set up this list of providers, was to simply list them in order of their distance from the center of my city... first doc, for instance, is listed at  0.11 mil from city center, which is more or less right in the middle of where they are and where I am, since I am pretty much downtown, and this practice is one of the numerous med practices in close proximity to the nearest local hospital.  I scrolled down the first page, and probably about 85% of the docs are in fact listed as 'accepting new patients' (interestingly, those few I saw on this page who weren't were located in the ritzy upscale rich neighborhood located in close proximity to the high-end hospital across town).   Other than this, the only things listed about each doc were what if any additional subspecialties these PCPs practiced, whether they were 'board-certified' therein (some weren't-- is this a concern?) and what other languages besides English they spoke (one woman mentioned Hindi and Urdu, plus Tagalog and Portuguese, all from a doc whose surname is 'Grady'-- as a longime language teacher who has taught three very distinct languages and studied others, I confess to skepticism as to her level of competence in these disparate tongues, though of course Hindi and Urdu are very close kin, and this sort of thing makes me wonder what doc practices might be exaggerating about in such PR literature, on www sites, etc.-- I know prep schools certainly do this, and probably colleges and grad school programs as well (certainly my PhD program essentially lied about the subspecialty that convinced me to attend, back in the day)).  As I thought last night, there appears to be no way to 'limit search' to limit for things like subspecialty and location, which would be helpful to me, so I will have to scroll down the hard way.

2) No info was offered as to the educational background of the docs... which concerneth me not a whit.   Put simply, all US med schools are fine, since they all must make certain that their programs meet the exacting curricular criteria of the AMA or the corresponding outfit for DOs, and all docs here, even foreign-educated ones, must not only have their schools' offerings clearly evaluated, but then the individual docs must pass stringent internship/ residency/ licensing exam standards.   This is why med ed differs enormously from legal ed here... and why we do not see MDs who have taken the state licensing board exam and flunked it ten times.  Indeed, most college/ uni departments should take a serious look at whether they could at least consider hiring faculty who do not have PhDs from elite depts/ schools.

3) How can one seriously evaluate the legitimacy and/or relevance of any individual online doc review?  Really, this is a serious question...

[Langue_doc]

@K16, I would rely on referrals/reviews as there is often no correlation between the prestige of the school attended and the physician's ablity to diagnose and treat patients.

You do need to make sure that your medical provider is board certified. As for languages, medical practices here are required to state if there are employees who are fluent in languages other than English.

Our state does have a directory of physicians

To provide the public with profiles for all licensed doctors of medicine and doctors of osteopathy who are registered to practice medicine in New York State. Each profile contains information about a specific doctor.

The following information is required to be available to the public:

Medical Education
The names of hospitals the doctor is affiliated with
Translation services available at the doctor's office
Legal actions taken against the doctor, including medical malpractice events.

Your state might have a similar website.

[mythbuster]

If you google the doctors name, they likely have a profile on US New Health or a similar web page. This will have all the educational background, licensure, which hospitals they serve, approved insurance etc. It often will have some level of reviews as well.
   As for Dr. Grady speaking Urdu etc., it could be that she married Mr. Grady and uses his last name to be easy on her patients. Like the infamous episode in Seinfeld about Donna Chang who was not Chinese.

[Ruralguy]

You have enough going on. Don't get distracted by why someone has the surname they have or why they know the languages they know. I'll add though that no one randomly learns Tagalog in any American school or college, and probably not Europe either. That is, this person has a connection to the Philippines and other parts of Asia. But don't obsess about why.  Why does it even matter?

[kaysixteen]

1) It did not dawn on me that the list of langs spoken could include any langs spoken by any practice employee-- good point.   And I also get the married name thing.   What does matter, and should matter to anyone, is if med practices (like prep schools and graduate school depts) are *lying* about stuff like this, since,  of course, if they will lie about a simple, non-medical related issue, well...

2) State med licensing boards are probably required to list physician ed background, etc., but this is an insurance co listing of available docs.  Very minimal info.

3) I guess I am just not all that concerned with whether Doctor X had had a med mal lawsuit filed against him, as I suspect most docs, *esp* surgeons and those docs who deal with hard, serious med problems, have had this.  Here in Mass., it is very hard to actually win a med mal lawsuit, as it should be, but anyone can file such a suit.

4) Online reviews given by patients, well, mewonders whether these might have the same level of legitimacy as online reviews of the local Applebee's-- or am I missing something?

[spork]

Online reviews of physicians are about as reliable as online reviews on Amazon ("book arrived damaged") and Rate My Professor ("she didn't teach anything"). Worse, they are scattered across a dozen different websites. Many will be based on the author's interaction with staff, which, though part of the customer service experience, says nothing about the physician's medical expertise.

I recommend word of mouth referrals within your social and professional networks, if possible. You will probably need to comparison shop to some degree.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers often maintain lists of physicians with experience treating particular conditions. It's a way to sell more product.