Tips for Using Online Reviews to Find The Best Doctor

It can be difficult to find a doctor. Before you see the doctor, it can be difficult to evaluate their knowledge, competency, bedside manner, or how easy it is for you to get an appointment. This adds complexity to the process of finding a doctor in your insurance network.

A referral from a friend or family member, a phone directory, online directory or referral from another doctor has been a traditional way to find a doctor. Each of these options has its drawbacks. While phone books and online directories can give you the name of a doctor and contact information, they will not tell you much about their competence, bedside manner, wait time, or other subjective information. Websites advertising top doctors are just as unhelpful. These sites often charge physicians a fee to list their doctor. This fee is the only criteria that makes a physician "top doctor". These sites often forward the email address and confidential information of users to the doctor when they request more information. This means that even months later, the user may still receive unsolicited communications mailing lists of medical professionals.

Referrals from close friends are the best way to find the right physician. Most friends can only refer one or two doctors. These doctors might not be within your network, or may be too far away from where you live. It is better to get recommendations and reviews from multiple patients than one referral. These are not only difficult to do, but they can also be very practical.

An online review service can help you overcome these problems. It has unbiased reviews and a large database of doctors. This service should let a user contact a doctor without disclosing their personal contact information. It also allows users to distinguish reviews written by friends from reviews written anonymously. Users can ask each other questions about reviews and ask for reviews from others in their network. It is important that the user can control who sees his review text and his identity when he writes it. This will ensure that he is as comfortable as possible sharing as much information as he can.