The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: Holyoak on January 17, 2018, 10:29:17 AM
-
I'm in a new area with no co-workers, or others to ask for an opinion, so how did you find your new dentist and doctor in a similar situation? I know I'm pretty much limited to using my insurance providers list, doctor review sites, etc, and wonder if I am missing another way or resource. Thanks for the help and guidance.
-
Community boards can be a great option. Use NextDoor or similar community sites (many groups on facebook) and ask people's opinions. Added bonus, these can give you "ins" to meeting your neighbors and finding acquaintances.
-
Insurance lists, and then go to another one if I didn't like them. I've moved a number of times as an adult, and thats worked for me.
The one time I took referrals from friends, someone who came highly recommended by a number of people ended up fairly disastrous.
-
Yelp can have good info (but read the text reviews, don't just go by ratings!) BUT, it's geographically varied. I've been in places where such services didn't have yelp reviews...
-
Thank you everyone for your input, it is appreciated and helpful.
-
I used my insurance company's website to find doctors and dentists who were taking new patients and chose based mostly on proximity to home/work.
-
You could always call some of the peripheral services and ask for a recommendation. So if there's a specialist dental service around, or perhaps a local hospital, you could ask them to recommend a dentist. You could ask physiotherapists, podiatrists, optometrists etc to recommend a GP. They work closely with GPs, and they'll know who works effectively and who doesn't.
-
I picked the dentist whose office is in walking distance with the least shady-looking building.
-
what others said: insurance list, then Nextdoor. don't be afraid to shop around. In fact i'd say for sure shop around with dentists; no insult to the good ones but a lot of them are crooks.
good luck!
-
I believe like most doctors can treat the typical stuff like sinus infection or cough. But you don't know how good your dr. is until there is something odd going on. When I am asking for recommendations from people I ask if their doctor diagnosed them (or a friend) with something serious. How well did the dr. listen, how suspicious were they, what kind of follow up did you get.
I've had friends whose dr.'s diagnosed them correctly with very little information (likely lessening the severity of the disease with early intervention) and I've had friends whose dr. completely missed very serious illnesses even with every single disease-specific symptom laid out before them.