Where do you go to find info to help choose a doctor? I’ve found a few websites, but none that are very good.
I’ve got a list of ortho surgeons recommended by various people and I’m trying to choose one. I know there are websites for this but I’m not having much luck.
Suggestions, please!
P.S.
Maybe this should be GQ, but I’m going with IMHO. Please move if needed. Thanks.
Two websites are Castle Connolly and HealthGrades. I think both are paid sites. Of course there’s always Yelp.
Angie’s List now lets people grade health professionals, but that’s also a paid site.
Gah!
Yelp is one I had heard of but couldn’t remember. They have no listings for Oklahoma.
I used to have an Angie’s List membership, but it’s fairly new here and last I checked still had hardly any reviews.
Castle Connolly - lessee, I can pay $25 to see if they have any docs listed for my area in a service heavily skewed to the coasts. Of course, if they don’t list docs in my area, I’m SOL and out the cash. The free listings area basically paid marketing for hospitals.
HealthGrades looks very interesting. If I can find what I want on that site, and figure out how much they want for it, this one might work.
Thanks guys!
Word of mouth has its uses, but I’d be wary of judging physicians based on ratings from such sites, especially with a limiting sampling of opinion.
Every once in awhile I check out my own profile on these sites (not too surprisingly, few people bother to rate their pathologists). I was surprised to see that on one such site, my professional training was listed as including a residency in colorectal surgery, in which I was never enrolled). Nice to know I have a specialty to fall back on, though. :dubious:
Good column on the subject of patient satisfaction surveys today in USA Today. The moral of the story is what makes patients happy is not necessarily good medical practice.
At the very least, check the physicians you are interested in on your state’s medical licensing board. Ours lists malpractice information and license violations. Pretty interesting stuff. 
Well, I’m actually starting my list with personal referrals. I was hoping to get some better information to choose from among that list.
The Connolly website is actually peer-review info, but their list is very limited. And given my experiences, I’m not all that hot on peer-review either. Don’t get me started.
The state medical board lists disciplinary actions but that’s all.
The HealthGrades website collects malpractice info as well as disciplinary action & etc. That’s more what I’m looking for than patient reviews.
I wish there was a better way to pick a doctor than guessing and hoping. 
I’m a doctor, and I struggle with choosing competent physicians for myself and my family.
I don’t always trust the recommendations of lay folks. Some real personable physicians are not the greatest practitioners.
I don’t find any websites real helpful, and even indications of malpractice suits and settlements isn’t that good an indicator, as many great physicians take on tough cases and people that have unreasonable expectations. And even the best doctors err on occasions.
So to me the Regulatory Board websites serve best to warn against doctors who have been shown to have acted dishonestly and illegally.
Meanwhile I consult trusted colleagues about who’s good, and get other data from seeing how other physicians handle my patients.
Yeah, well, see. Us regular peeps can’t really do that, y’know? 
Le sigh.
And what’s even more depressing is that MY doctor is retiring in May, and now I have to find a new primary care, too.
Le suck.
ETA: Oh yeah, meant to say… I wouldn’t necessarily discount a doc for a malpractice, I know how that can be. But if he’s had several, I might think twice, neh?
Well, if you can’t make the effort to pick up a medical degree and then practice a few years to enable you to better utilize the health care system, you’re just not trying! 
PS: It never hurts to make sure your primary care doc is Board certified, in something like family medicine, internal medicine, or OB/Gyn.
This can generally be found online.
For Family Medicine docs, ABFM board certification can be found here: American Board of Family Medicine | ABFM | American Board of Family Medicine
Board certification is no sure guarantee of quality, but you raise the odds of having a competent doc a fair amount if they’re certified in a recognized specialty by an accredited board.
Here’s the American Board of Medical Specialties site for checking board status over many areas of medical specialty: https://www.abms.org/WC/login.aspx
Thanks very much for all the suggestions, folks.
I’ll be doing some research, and then I suppose it’s just take a guess and hope for the best.
At least I know that I’m not the only one with this problem.
Oh, by no means are you alone.
My PCP closed her practice in December. I finally chose a new one, and will be seeing her next week. My final decision ended up being based on convenience, proximity to home, and a virtual crap shoot.
If you ask on the phone if their doctors are board certified in a particular specialty area, and the person who responds says that they’re “board qualified”… this can mean they failed the exams the last time they tried, and will try again. At least, that’s what I said when asked about a particular subspecialty at my last job, that the one doctor was board certified in the main area of practice and “board qualified” in the subspecialty. Failing does happen, but this particular doctor had failed more than once. :smack: