Premier Health Plus Offers Tips for Your Doctor Search

Premier Health Plus, an Adaptive Marketing LLC^® healthcare savings program, wants to impress upon people the idea that choosing a doctor should never be done simply by picking a name out of the local phone directory.

Even in the best of times, notes PremierHealthPlus, your health is a serious matter. Every day of the year, emergency rooms across the country are filled with people who were in good physical condition when they woke up that day. While a trip to the ER is often just a temporary setback to your well-being, your long-term prognosis frequently depends on the follow-up care provided by your regular physician or a local specialist.

Unfortunately, a variety of outside factors can frequently lead to compromises in selecting primary care physicians and specialists. A convenient location, for instance, can too often appear more attractive than a wall full of medical degrees, especially if your lunch break is the only realistic time you can see a doctor. However, as Premier Health Plus points out, your health is too important to base your decision merely on location.

Premier Health Plus offers tips on selecting your doctor

-- If you’re covered by health insurance, check your insurance provider’s list of participating primary care physicians (PCPs). Depending on your insurance plan, an in-network PCP may be the least expensive option (if cost is a factor), and insurance companies are well-versed in screening physicians.

-- Figure out what you need in a PCP. Ideally, you’ll have one PCP for your entire family, which can help you develop a long-term relationship with the doctor. If you have infants or special medical conditions, though, a “one doctor fits all” approach may not work. Determine your needs — which can range from a physical every other year and office visits only as needed to regular maintenance visits and frequent consultations with specialists — then ...

-- Research physicians in your area. Ask trusted friends and neighbors for their recommendations. Speak with nurses and other medical personnel in your local hospital or clinic. Go online to http://www.ama-assn.org/aps/amahg.htm to check on the training and board certification qualifications for nearby doctors. Other useful online research sites include http://www.docboard.org and http://www.certifacts.org.

-- Contact local doctors’ offices. Find out whether they’re accepting new patients and how big their current patient loads are. (This can lead to a difficult decision for you; a busy office may be a sign of a good doctor, but an overly busy office sometimes means long waits and less face time with the doctor.) Be sure to ask about the doctor’s hospital privileges; ideally, your PCP is permitted to practice in your first choice of local hospitals.

-- Once you’ve chosen a doctor and made an appointment, try to get to know your doctor. Unless your insurance plan has strong restrictions, you’re not locked into your choice of PCPs. Take some time to assess your personal rapport with your PCP; gauge his or her listening skills, questioning abilities, interest in your concerns, bedside manner and more. If you’re not comfortable with your doctor, find a new one. After all, a good doctor-patient relationship can last for decades and include various levels of very personal examinations. If you’re uneasy just speaking with your doctor, that’s not a good sign.

While the tips above are geared toward finding a PCP, they’re equally applicable to finding a specialist if and when you need one, with one obvious caveat: The greater the threat to your health, the more important a doctor’s qualifications are, and the more emphasis you should place on researching your options. If you need to have a wart removed, most doctors can handle that with a minimum of muss and fuss. If you need to have a tumor removed, selecting the right doctor can literally be a life-and-death decision.

PremierHealthPlus offers affordable, quality healthcare to hundreds of thousands of uninsured and underinsured Americans. Program members can access one of the largest networks of healthcare providers — doctors and specialists, labs, hospitals, emergency rooms, dentists, eye doctors and vision centers, pharmacies, nutritionists and more — in the country.

This article is brought to you by Premier Health Plus.

Premier Health Plus

Headquartered in Norwalk, Conn., Adaptive Marketing LLC^® is a category leader in membership programs, bringing value direct to consumers through an array of benefits in healthcare, discounts, security and personals. With broad online and offline distribution capabilities, Adaptive Marketing offers its corporate client partners effective tools to enhance market presence, strengthen customer affinity and generate additional value through programs such as PremierHealthPlus.

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