How to Choose a Doctor

For most of my career, I was in a small private practice.  Our staff were like family.  We prided ourselves on providing highly personalized attention to our patients which started at the moment that the patient was greeted by our receptionist.  For a patient to enjoy an optimal medical experience, every member of the team needs to perform at a high level.  The doctor is but one member of a larger team.  Indeed, I have heard personally of patients who have left medical practices who liked the doctors but not the staffs.  Everyone counts.

We saw patients who were self-referred or sent to us by referring doctors or by family members. I have always asked every new patient how they came to see me personally, and I still do.  It is always gratifying when a patient is recommended to us by a medical professional or a family member. You took care of my grandmother and she raves about you!  This not only feels good to the doctor, but the patient arrives already having confidence about the upcoming medical experience. This is a great way for the doctor-patient relationship to commence.

Now that I am employed by a huge medical organization with thousands of physicians, the referral system is quite different.  While I still see some patients who have been sent to me specifically, most of the new patients appear on my schedule by chance. Often, the patients themselves do not even know how they ended up on my schedule.  I had an open appointment slot and a staff member  or a scheduler on the phone filled it.  Having to accommodate tens of thousands of patients requires an impersonal efficiency to keep the trains running.  I understand this, but it doesn’t feel the same to me as you took care of my mom and my sister.  I imagine this feels different for patients also particularly if they enjoyed personalized medical care in the past.  One of the costs of efficiency is intimacy.

Making appointments is like rolling the dice.

There are many benefits and advantages to being an employed physician, particularly at this stage in my career.  But, of course, there are drawbacks.  Luckily for me, many of my patients have followed me from my prior private practice allowing us to perpetuate the warm relationships that we forged years ago.  I’m not saying that relationships like this can’t develop now.  But it takes more work to do this within a system that is designed to promote productivity and efficiency.  As the employment physician model has become dominant, this is a new reality that patients and medical professional need to accept.  And if the current 'roll the dice' system is all you know, then you won't know what you are missing.