Tips on finding a doctor to meet your needs
Choosing a doctor as a long-term general practitioner or a specialist for a specific condition can be fraught with questions, worries about bias and challenges towards finding usable information to base a decision on.
Background Checks
Finding out any information about a potential doctor can feel like a spy mission. Large health systems have pressured most doctor and hospital rating sites either out of business or are so restricted in what they will publish that they don’t provide much usable information. There are still a few places you can glean helpful information.
The Doctor’s Website
Most clinic or hospital websites provide some basic information about the doctors that work there. Information such as their schooling, any specialized licenses, areas of practice, and some personal information. This can be useful for determining their professional training but remember that a credential doesn’t always convey the full picture of a professional’s competency. If you are searching for a specialist, the specialized training or licenses carry more weight. Research what are the main accreditation boards for the specialty in question, this may help identify someone well-versed in that condition.
The personal information provided may give some hints about the doctor’s point of view or potential biases. A bit of reading between the lines or researching any organizational ties they share from outside of work may be useful.
Google And Yelp
The same place you look to find a good taco truck is ironically one of the better places to find feedback about hospitals, clinics, and individual doctors. This does require some discernment. Reviews tend to be either extreme. The glowing or the awful, and no in between. Both sites will allow businesses including doctors to have unflattering reviews removed. So you may not see someone’s horrible experience if that clinic has taken steps to have certain reviews removed. Many do not so these can give some insight into frustration points or problems other patients faced.
There are also some less-than-honest clinics that post fake reviews to drive the negative ones further down the list of reviews. If the reviews sound formulaic or vague but fawning they may be there to gloss over the image of the clinic and drive those bad reviews deeper into the pages of reviews. Watching for this and also skimming older reviews can be useful to get the real story.
What To Look For
A pattern of bad reviews from specific groups of people could hint at bias problems. Particularly egregious complaints of patients being dismissed or treated poorly can show questionable behavior or system problems at a facility. Also, look for patterns of financial complaints. Did many people complain about being overcharged? Did multiple people complain about the same kind of questionable financial tactics like bait and switch, inflated prices, or tactics to dupe people into large bills and then pressure them into paying?
Frequent complaints of mistakes, miscommunication, or patient frustration with the systems the doctor or facility has in place may show problems that could result in constant frustration or unsafe practices.
Check The Medical Board
Anyone can make a complaint but complaints to the medical board can provide hints about behavior and practices that a doctor can’t just ask to be deleted. Repeated complaints of the same kind may be a red flag about a problem. Particularly concerning complaints around ethics, patient injury, or criminal behavior would also be good to know as part of any decision-making. A doctor might get a court case dismissed or trivialized down to something that doesn’t land them in a large amount of trouble. A related medical board complaint would still be easy to find on a state’s website.
Ask Around
Asking people you trust for suggestions can help identify potential doctors. Online support groups for various medical conditions can also be a valuable source of suggestions. Many groups keep lists of “approved” doctors or doctors other members have had good experiences with along with details about the type of care they provide.
Remember that you hire doctors as professional consultants to provide you with information and care. If one isn’t meeting your needs you can go somewhere else.