Helpful Tips for Choosing A PCP
It is incredibly important to choose a Primary Care Provider, so whether you have recently moved, switched insurance, or just have never found the time to make the choice, here are some tips for finding the perfect fit for you or your family:
Know What You Need:
Many adults choose a primary care physician that is certified in general medicine, or internal medicine to cover all their basic health needs, and act as a liaison to the rest of the healthcare landscape. Many families look for a family practitioner or pediatrician specializing in children’s health. Women may also want to choose a certified OB or GYN who can also take care of preventative and reproductive health, as well as pregnancy.
Get Recommendations:
It can be a dizzying process to sift through listings of doctors and specialists in your area, so often it helps to start with some recommendations from trusted friends, family, or co-workers. Of course you shouldn’t go on word alone, so you’ll have to follow up with your own research!
Check your insurance coverage:
Make sure you understand which doctors are covered in your network, or how much out of network physician’s will cost. Doctors and insurance relationships can change, so it’s good to keep on top of your network. Most insurers have a database of doctors in their networks, which can be quite large depending on where you live.
Do you research:
Once you know which doctors are available to you, it’s time to do a little research. There are many tools out there to find out information about your PCP candidates. A simple Google search will most likely have plenty of returns about schools, achievements, and career, but you can also look to databases like HealthGrades, or RateMDs to help with your search. Many cities also have Best-Of lists, check magazines like New York Magazine for stand out docs. But it’s important to remember that you need more than just what’s good on paper, which is why it’s best to do a little more digging.
Get to Know Your Candidates:
Doctors need you to help them help you, so make sure your physician is someone you feel comfortable speaking openly with about any and all health concerns that may come up. Try contacting their office to see if they will set up an introductory phone call. Here you can get a sense of the kind of person they are, and ask some questions about how he or she works with patients to see if you will be a good match. A visit to the office, or even just to the practice’s website will also be telling in what kind of environment and person the doctor is. Trust and communication are key in finding a good primary care provider, but often people turn to boiler-plate metrics to make these determinations, like age, gender, or language. These can be important factors to getting along, but they shouldn’t deter you from reaching far and wide in your search to find the best fit for you and your loved ones.
Finding the right primary care provider (PCP) can be difficult, but Pager can help you find a PCP that is right for you. Chat with the Pager Care Team using the Pager app today.
Written by Olivia Murphy
