Selecting the Right Doctor for You and Your Family

Selecting the right doctor for you and your family is an important decision. You might be trying to find a new doctor because you have moved, because you have acquired a chronic illness and are not satisfied with your current care, or it may be one of several other reasons for discontinuing your current physician’s care. Whatever the motivation may be, there is an easy and painless way to find a new MD near you.

Here are some questions to ask and the explanations as to why they are so important:

1. Where did the doctor graduate from medical school? This question is particularly important so you can check up on the quality of education.

2. How long has the doctor been in practice? You want to ask this question for obvious reasons; you want to make sure he/she knows what they are is doing.

3. If you were to become a client, would you still be charged an office visit if you were to cancel an appointment? Surprisingly, a lot of doctor’s offices will charge the office visit fee (anywhere from $25-$85) for a canceled appointment no matter the reason, just for wasting their time. This tells you one thing that they are more worried about money rather then the client. Which means you will most likely be spending money on unnecessary test and prescriptions.

4. What type of practice do you generally follow as far as remedies/treatments? A) Natural home treatment B) Over the counter medication C) Prescription drugs – – This is basically for your own personal preference, you want to feel comfortable.

5. Is this doctor flexible when accepting insurances? Just in case you change insurance companies in the future you want to be sure that once you’re happy with a doctor you don’t have to leave just for that one issue.

6. How fast and efficient are you when tests need to be ordered and prescriptions need to be written? There is nothing worse than waiting an abnormal amount of time when you are worried about the outcome of test results because of an illness, solely because your doctor can not do his job properly with your highly stressful situation in mind.

7. If you are looking to find a doctor for your family you want to make sure that the doctor has plenty enough experience with childrenand has no history of accidents.

8. You need to know what hospital he/she treats atand if it is convenient for you to get to.

9. If you already have a chronic illness you need to make sure he is well qualified to treat it/ an expert in that field.

10. Ask you doctor for referrals. This is a good helpful tool into the professional life of your perspective doctor. DO NOT just hold on to the referrals, check them out and find out if there have been any malpractice suits against him for negligence or anything else.

Always remember that you doctor works FOR YOU. Many people get nervous even intimidated by doctors� if you do then he/she is not right for you. Comfort and ease is all you should feel around a person with whom holds your life in their hands. If your doctor EVER diagnoses you with any serious illness PLEASE get a second opinion� no good doctor will ever be upset if their client does this. It is your life, make sure the person who handles it can do a good job.