Relationships with other doctors

[blazenmadison]

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The OD I work for referred a patient to an OMD. THe patient returned telling the OD the OMD said she was not seeing a real doctor and not to trust the optometrist, etc. The patient was kind enough to tell us that. OMDs bashing ODs when they give them patients?

What type of relationships do you (as a practicing OD) have with local ODs and OMDs? Do you have meetings and introduce yourself? Should an OD interact with primary care providers more, so they will refer eye patients to them?

 

[scraders]

The OD I work for referred a patient to an OMD. THe patient returned telling the OD the OMD said she was not seeing a real doctor and not to trust the optometrist, etc. The patient was kind enough to tell us that. OMDs bashing ODs when they give them patients?

hahahaha...that OMD is so funny...

 

[KHE]

The OD I work for referred a patient to an OMD. THe patient returned telling the OD the OMD said she was not seeing a real doctor and not to trust the optometrist, etc. The patient was kind enough to tell us that. OMDs bashing ODs when they give them patients?

What type of relationships do you (as a practicing OD) have with local ODs and OMDs? Do you have meetings and introduce yourself? Should an OD interact with primary care providers more, so they will refer eye patients to them?

This is actually very rare.

There are some doctors (of all specialties) who will take the opportunity to run down other doctors any chance they are given. ODs do this too acutally. Probably much more so than OMDs.

That being said, when you encounter these people the easiest thing to do is just not send them any patients.

When I was just out of school I had almost an identical situation as the one you described. I was new in town and had referred a patient to an OMD that I did not really know well at all. It was actually me who phoned the patient up and asked what was said and the patient told me that the OMD AND HIS STAFF had all taken the opportunity to give them the "I wasn't a "real doctor" speech" I then phoned up the OMD and asked him point blank if he and his staff had done this. He denied it of course but I could tell from the stuttering and stammering that he had done it. As I got more famiiar with my town I found out from other ODs that this was a standard practice in his office so you just don't send fools like that patients.

I've actually had ODs do thist with much more frequency. I've spent about half of my time in private practice and half my time in commercial locations. In the commercial locations when a patient has an insurance plan that we don't take, I used to try to refer them to local ODs. More than a couple of times those ODs have also given the patients the "not a real doctor" speech because the referal came from Lenscrafters. Needless to say, I just stopped referring those ODs patients.

 

[66Lenses]

The OD I work for referred a patient to an OMD. THe patient returned telling the OD the OMD said she was not seeing a real doctor and not to trust the optometrist, etc. The patient was kind enough to tell us that. OMDs bashing ODs when they give them patients?

What type of relationships do you (as a practicing OD) have with local ODs and OMDs? Do you have meetings and introduce yourself? Should an OD interact with primary care providers more, so they will refer eye patients to them?

Sounds petty to me.
I prefer not to associate with people that tend to be immature like that.

 

[orangezero]

There is a general misunderstanding about what current ODs do. Get ready for it, if you are still a student. Probably happens in a lot of professions, but this is all we see.

The only thing we can do as ODs is try to educate our patients, provide good service, and refer to those we are comfortable with.

When i interviewed with an OMD, the doc was fine but his tech asked why he'd even be interested in an OD since she could do what I do. Lack of understanding, whatever. You think I'm ever sending patients to that place...

I try to explain to people that ophthalmologists are highly trained surgical specialists, and they would prefer to spend their time on their specialty. Thats the nice way of saying it. I think it looks makes you look bad if you downgrade another profession or doctor.

As far as commercial optometry, there are lots of reasons ODs work there. Lots of frustrations with private ODs about commercial optometry, and a lot is beyond the control of the commerical OD.

 

[Idok]

There is a general misunderstanding about what current ODs do. Get ready for it, if you are still a student. Probably happens in a lot of professions, but this is all we see.

The only thing we can do as ODs is try to educate our patients, provide good service, and refer to those we are comfortable with.

When i interviewed with an OMD, the doc was fine but his tech asked why he'd even be interested in an OD since she could do what I do. Lack of understanding, whatever. You think I'm ever sending patients to that place...

I try to explain to people that ophthalmologists are highly trained surgical specialists, and they would prefer to spend their time on their specialty. Thats the nice way of saying it. I think it looks makes you look bad if you downgrade another profession or doctor.

As far as commercial optometry, there are lots of reasons ODs work there. Lots of frustrations with private ODs about commercial optometry, and a lot is beyond the control of the commerical OD.

excellent post!