Please help me filter out the good from my list of NYC doctors covered by my insurance.

March 9, 2009 12:04 PM

Please help me filter out the good from my list of NYC doctors covered by my insurance.

This is my last resort after days over months of searching trying to connect the dots and find doctors. Maybe you guys can help. I have searched on yelp, zocdoc, and all kinds of lists of good doctors (nymag) on google for ways to filter the list of doctors my insurance covers and have come up empty. I can't believe after days and hours online I've come up empty.

1. I am looking for a really awesome family practice doctor who can do it all OR a coop-type office that has multiple doctors (gyn, internal medicine, ortho or DO, etc.) I could see on my visit that takes my obscure crappy insurance First Health/Coventry Health Care.

2. Or techniques to filter out the good from the bad in an insurance's list of doctors.

I live in Brooklyn 11220, am often in 11215 and don't mind going to Midtown or below. I'd prefer a female or very nice male. I would really appreciate anyone who has wisdom about this or is willing to help. I'm at my wits end. Thank you.

posted by scazza to health & fitness (3 comments total)

Do you know anyone else on your plan who could recommend someone? (I'd recommend my doctor, who's awesome, but it looks like she isn't on your plan's list.)
posted by ocherdraco at 12:11 PM on March 9

Unfortunately for both of us, I can't recommend my current doctor. One tool I have found slightly useful is RateMDs.com. While I imagine it's probably gamed by savvy doctors to put in good ratings, I usually check it out to weed out the awful. My thinking is that if someone is a truly terrible doctor, people will be motivated to put something in there. I've seen this prove to be true in at least one horrendous doc experience I've had.
posted by funkiwan at 9:00 PM on March 9

Yeah, I feel you. There's a complete lack of transparency in the process of finding a doctor. My current strategy is trial and error. Call ahead with some questions and see if the receptionist and/or doctor can answer them, and also how they answer them (tone, degree of patience, etc.). Don't go in expecting too much, and you may find yourself pleasantly surprised. Remember that online reviews tend to be pretty polarized - if you had a WOW! experience or a terrible one you'd be more likely to report, and probably moreso if you felt it was a terrible one.
posted by xiaolongbao at 2:15 PM on March 10