How to find a good family doctor

[tennisball80]

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I am new to this college town. I asked some Biology professors about the doctors they would recommend to me. I checked their profiles on RateMD.com. Most of them received bad ratings online.

How would you find a good family doctor for yourself when you are in a new place?

I am trying to find a family doctor because I can see him when I am sick.

Thanks.

 

[randombetch]

Whoa, never seen that site more. Too bad it's not used more widely.

 

[Depakote]

I am new to this college town. I asked some Biology professors about the doctors they would recommend to me. I checked their profiles on RateMD.com. Most of them received bad ratings online.

How would you find a good family doctor for yourself when you are in a new place?

I am trying to find a family doctor because I can see him when I am sick.

Thanks.

Find a person I trust and ask them to recommend a doctor.

I'll take the recommendation of a friend over an anonymous online review any day.

 

[whatuthinkin]

Trial and error. I have yet to find one I like... Thank god I have an awesome acupuncturist.

 

[red10]

when i was looking to switch from my peds doc to a big girl doc (haha) my mom called up the clinic, asked which docs were accepting new patients and they gave us a bunch of print outs of docs, their specialties/medical interests, where they went to school etc.
I dunno if thats a common thing or not but it was kinda neat. Eventually I ended up going to see the same doc as one of my friends who reccomended her.

My current doc was reccommended to me by another doc I know who had her working with him when she was doing her rotations. I really like her because she's younger so I feel more comfy with her. Plus I can ask her about med school and it hasn't been 30 years since she went through.

 

[voitokas]

It's probably worth calling around during business hours to check who's actually taking new patients. If they don't pick up the phone, it's a bad sign, too. Those two things may strike half the physicians off your list. It might also be a good idea to call your insurance company and find out if they require certain labs to be used (my insurance company, Cigna, requires my labs to be run through Quest - my $5000/yr. policy doesn't buy me much choice...), and see if your prospective new GP has any problems with that company. Lastly, I look for a physician who graduated 10-15 years ago, hoping that they will be still on top of the field with a decent amount of experience under their belt...

 

[schrizto]

Why would you ask your biology professor for doctor recommendations? I use the student health center.

 

[boaz]

Don't limit yourself to biology professors--there's nothing about them that makes them more knowledgeable about local doctors than sociology professors. Just ask around amongst the adults that you know. When you get an enthusiastic response ('he's amazing!') rather than the normal neutral ('Yea, I've been with him/her for years and I've never had a problem') go with that one.

 

[tennisball80]

Can I use my Canadian health card here? I guess not.

Thanks guys for the response.