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How to Find a Good Doctor
Can you recommend some good resources to help me locate some quality doctors in
my area? I'm looking for an orthopedic doctor for my 77-year-old mother and
a new internist for me, since my doctor retired last year.
Dear Susan,
Searching Tips You also need to check your insurance provider. Call your insurer for a list of approved doctors or ask whether the doctor you're considering is in-network. If your mother is enrolled in original Medicare, you can use the care compare tool at Medicare.gov/care-compare - click on "Doctors & Clinicians." This will let you find doctors by name, medical specialty or by geographic location that accept original Medicare. If she's enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, call or visit the plan website to get a list of approved candidates. Once you find a few doctors, you need to call their office to verify that they still accept your insurance, and if they are accepting new patients. You should also consider hospital affiliation. Your choice of doctor can determine which hospital you go to, if needed, so find out where the doctor has admitting privileges. Then use some hospital ratings services like Medicare.gov/care-compare (click on "Hospitals") to see how it compares with other hospitals in the area.
Researching Doctors The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS Data) is also a good source for researching doctors. For example, it will help you find out how many times a doctor did a particular procedure and what they charge for it - go to Data.CMS.gov/tools and click on "Medicare Physician & Other Practitioner Look-up Tool." And to learn about the financial relationship that doctors have with drug and medical device companies, visit OpenPaymentsData.CMS.gov. Some other good sites for finding and researching healthcare professionals include Healthgrades (healthgrades.com) and Vitals (vitals.com). Both sites provide substantial doctor's information on education and training, hospital affiliations, board certification, awards and recognitions, professional misconduct, disciplinary action, office locations and accepted insurance plans. They also offer 5-star ratings scales from past patients on issues such as communication and listening skills, wait time, time spent with the patient, office friendliness and more. But be aware that while physician rating websites can be helpful, they can also be misleading and unreliable. |