Finding a New Doctor in a New City
Finding A New Doctor Is Hard, But It Shouldn’t Be
Like many other college students, the first time I ever thought about finding my own doctor was after I was no longer living at home. I’d had the same doctor my whole life, and had no idea where to even start finding a new one. Finding a good (aka compatible) doctor can be difficult even if you know how to go about it, but it’s even harder when you factor in your insurance.
Throughout the years both my partner and I have learned how to make our lives a little easier when it comes to finding new primary care providers or new specialty providers. Finding care shouldn’t be difficult, so we’ve compiles our top tips and tricks for getting help and navigating health care!
Finding a Doctor
When you move somewhere new, the first thing you should do is find a new PCP. A PCP(Primary Care Provider) is important to have a go-to doctor for things like check ups, STD testing, and for general medical inquiries. As a student, having a PCP was primarily relevant to getting all the shots required to live in dorms. They provide a lot of preventative care, which just means to help stop you from getting sick at all. Primary care includes nursing, faamily medicine, pharmacy, optometrists, general obgyn, and more.
These are the top things we’ve found to help you find your new Dr.
1. Ask a LOCAL Friend
The easiest way to find a reliable new doctor is to ask your friends from the area. Most likely, your friends have been living there long enough that they’ve gotten a local PCP who they find reasonable and reliable enough to pass on to you as a recommendation.
Ask their favourite things about the doctor they’re recommending and what they value in their medical care. Once you have that recommendation, either call their office or go to their website to see if they take your insurance.
If you go to a doctor because of someone’s recommendation, tell the doctor about your referal. Sometimes your friend might get an unexpected bonus or discount from it. It’s the ultimate win-win and overall the best option in my experience!
2. Using ZocDoc
ZocDoc is an NYC company that helps people find and book appointments for dental or medical care. This site allows you to find a doctor through filters that include: insurance coverage, specialty, distance, online or in-person preferences, and more. It even allows you to sort the doctors by their ratings as 1 through 5 stars. And even better, it allows you to read reviews of past patients.
ZocDoc is free for patients, and instead makes money by charging physicians a subscription fee to appear on their list of available doctors. It appears that ZocDoc doesn’t accept any HIPPA obligations, but they claim to be dedicated to your privacy. When dealing with medical details, do your best to only share those type of things with medical professionals who are subject to HIPPA obligations.
Similar databases include the US News & World Report’s Doctor Finder directory, HealthGrades.com, and Vitals.com.
3. Go Through Your University
If you’re a student and in a new city, your easiest bet is to make an appointment with your school nurse/clinic and get their list of approved doctors in the area. This can be a great option because it saves you a lot of time in research and this especially goes for specialists like dermatologists or gynecologists.
If you’re taking this route and you’re also on school insurance, this is almost always a guarantee that the doctors in question take your insurance. It’s always best to double check, but most schools tend to list only hospitals that work with their internal insurance plans. A lot of these doctors also know that many patients come from universities and therefore tend to take care to maintain professional relationships by being more attentive to their university patients.
4. Go Through Your Workplace
If you receive insurance through your job, like most of us, your HR department generally has list of doctors ready for you if you’re willing to ask. This can be a great option because it saves you a lot of time in research and this especially goes for specialists like dermatologists or gynecologists.
Like university referrals, company recommended doctors generally try to maintain good relationships with the source of their new patients. Luckily for us, this usually means that they’ll treat you with baseline respect at the minimum (something we know all doctors aren’t known for).
What To Do Once You Have a Name
When you’re looking around for doctors, the recommendations can start to pile up. Once you’ve got a list of potential doctors, the next step is to narrow it down. So where do you start?
1. Online Certification Check
Any big decision comes with research, and it’s important to verify that everyone you’re looking at has their board certifications. Most will, but in the off chance that a candidate doesn’t, it’s very easy to cross them off your short list.
If you’re in the USA, go to the American Board of Medical Specialties to verify their board certification.
2. Check Their Accepted Insurances
Insurance can be one of the biggest limiting factors in getting healthcare. Sometimes even if you’ve found an incredible doctor or treatment, it can be denied by your insurance and you’ll be back to square one. Because of this, it’s important for you to know beforehand what insurance your potential doctor takes.
You can usually do this either by filtering through a healthcare database(ZocDoc, HealthGrades, etc) or by visiting the website of the practice employing your doctor. If you can’t find the information on their website, feel free to give them a call! They’re always looking for new patients so I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to touch base with you.
3. Make a Tester Appointment
Make your first appointment as an annual check-up (if you’re not looking for urgent specialist) to get a good feel of your potential new doctor. See how they respond to your concerns and requests, make sure they take you seriously and treat you with respect. If you don’t get along, you never have to go back. Hopefully you have a great new doctor in your new city!
If you feel especially uncomfortable paying them an in person visit, many offices now have the option to have a virtual visit. This can be great for those who are having some hospital anxiety, or even just if your in-person schedules don’t quite align. This can also be a quick way to get or update a prescription if you’re tight on time, or even to get a recommendation to see a specialist.
4. Enjoy Your New Life as a Patient!
Congratulations, just rinse and repeat until you have a doctor that you like and trust! When I moved to college and away from the only doctor I’d ever had, I had no idea what to do. And of course, none of the adults ever really told you before you left. I always wished there’d been an easy guide I could just look up. Thus, this one was born!
Hopefully this has been a useful and manageable list of ways to find a new doctor, as well as how to make sure your insurances are covered by them.
Looking for more? Give these a try!
Anything we missed? Let us know!
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