Your dynamic with your child’s pediatrician is a serious relationship. You can’t compare it to the one you have with your doctor—who you might spend five minutes with every two years. Kids have appointments more often and might come in five times a year for six visits, vaccinations, school physicals, etc.
It is the pediatrician who will catch early signs of developmental delays, or other problems that the parent needs to be aware of. They are a key player in your child’s path to happiness and success.
You want to pick the right one.
How do you do it? In this article, we take a comprehensive look at how you can find the best pediatric care for your children.
Finding the Right Person
You should, ideally, begin looking for a pediatrician while you are still expecting. This will ensure that you can get the baby’s first appointment in the books within a week or so of their first birthday.
This deadline, though perhaps stressful, can be productive. You’ll have plenty of time to get information and make a decision that you are comfortable with.
In the next few headings, we will take a look at how you can find the right person. From there, we will go on to more complex questions. What do you do if your ideal provider is out of your network? Should you change pediatricians?
Read on for those answers, and more.
Recommendations
Recommendations from friends and family are as good a place as any to start. You can’t know exactly what it is like to work with someone until you’ve done it yourself, but those firsthand accounts can at least be marked as good, compelling evidence of what your eventual experience will be like.
Buzzwords like “great bedside manner,” and “clear communication” are strong indicators of a good potential experience. Also, ask them how easy it is to make sick appointments. You’ll want a doctor who can get you on the schedule the same day you call in.
Google Reviews
Google Reviews are a good alternative if you don’t have a great source for high-quality firsthand recommendations. Two-sentence blurbs aren’t going to give you a comprehensive understanding of what it is like to work with a physician but they can at least point you in the right direction.
There are also plenty of websites where people can go to write more detailed reviews of their experiences. Do your research.
Look into the Overall Practice Structure
You won’t always see your primary physician. While this is the person who will handle your child’s annual checkups, they may not be available for sick visits. Most practices have a comprehensive set of professionals.
The doctor’s office you choose might consist of NPs, pediatric nurses, and multiple physicians. This is good in that it will allow the office to work with you on more flexible terms. If you have to call in for a sick appointment, you can be assured that someone will see you.
Are you comfortable with that person? While this isn’t as important as being comfortable with the primary physician, it will play into your experience more than you probably realize.
Also, find out if your primary physician has multiple practices. Some pediatricians will divide their time between two—or even three—offices. In these situations, you may deal with the other doctors and nurses almost exclusively for sick visits.
Definitely not a dealbreaker, but something you will want to know about going in.
Are You Willing to Travel for Better Care?
Finally, you may find that the best care providers are located out of your town. Are you willing to drive for better care? Your instinct may be to say “Yes, of course,” but don’t discount the fact that this might be a much more regular chore than you are expecting.
Kids go to the doctor so much more often than the average adult. If you have two or more children, you may feel like you go to the pediatrician’s office more often than you go to the grocery store.
Commuting for quality care can be a sensible plan, but be realistic.
Is it a Good Idea to Change Pediatricians?
It can be. If the person you wind up with turns out to be a bad fit, it’s certainly within your rights to move on to the next person. That said, you don’t want to make a habit out of it. Your pediatrician may frustrate you from time to time, even if they are otherwise a good fit. After all, what would the American healthcare system be without a little frustration, right?
It’s when your provider’s attitude and philosophy toward care fundamentally differs from your own that you should take a rip-and-replace approach.
This should be done sparingly because continuity is important for your child. The most essential piece of advice: This is not your doctor.
Poppa/momma might know best, but the pediatric relationship dynamic is complicated. The doctor is the expert. Your child is the patient. You are mostly just the driver.
Yes, your opinion matters. No, it isn’t a great idea to disturb that continuity of care if you don’t need to. Your child will benefit most from the relationship if they can work with someone they know and trust. Keep that in mind when you consider changing providers.
My Ideal Physician is Out of My Care Network
Ugh! This is one of the most frustrating situations a parent trying to attain high-quality care for their child can run into. The most upsetting aspect of the situation is that there are pretty stiff limits to what you can do about it.
This is your classic David and Goliath situation at work, and you don’t weigh at the heavyweight end of that dynamic. It is possible to fight your insurance company and come out the other end smiling, but it doesn’t happen much.
Work with your care provider. They may be able to expand the range of coverage options that they accept—particularly if there are many patients who are falling outside the scope of their current terms. Be persistent also in your dealings with the insurance company. This will mean dialing into a call service, being put on hold twenty times, getting transferred endlessly, etc. but it is only through this persistence that you will have any chance of getting what you want.
