When/How to Choose a Pediatrician?

[shoppinglinda223]

I didn't now anyone with small children that lived near me to ask, so here's how I picked one.

Looked up on the insurance company's website a list of doctors near my house (less than 10 miles) and who is associated with the better of the 2 hospitals in our city.

From that list, I looked for the following: office hours, # of doctors in practice, years of experience. The doctors we choose had 2 offices, a total of 7 pediatricians and 5 nurse practioners between the 2 locations, open Monday through Friday from 8:30am to 8:30 pm and Saturday from 8:00am to 1:00pm. We called them about 8 weeks from my due date to fill out all of the new patient paperwork.

It was a good thing I did this before I gave birth. I gave birth in a different city (about 50 miles away) then where I live because I did not want to change the ob/gyn that I have been seeing since I was 16. I was released from the hospital on a Friday evening and the hospital would not release the baby unless I could prove that she had an appointment with her pediatrician the next day (Saturday) because she had juandice. This pediatrician's office was able to get us in on a Saturday morning with little notice.

We are very happy with our pediatrician. She sees the same doctor for every well baby visit. The 3 times she was sick and we had to take her in, we got appointments within 2 hours and saw one of the nurse practioners or other doctors there. I feel more comforatble going to a large practice like this one.

[chriscree]

We used the one on call one at the hospital when they were first born...then I checked around till I found one I liked buuuuttt...my kids have seen about 4 Peds. since they were born for one reason or another Ie: insurance, clinic shut down, Dr moved accross town...

[regbyandjulie]

Originally Posted by aeflower I didn't realize you were supposed to notify the pediatrician ahead of time! LOL!

I didn't eiter until my sister was like "Have you found a pediatrician yet?" And I said "Don't you wait until you actually HAVE the baby?" and she acted like it was the craziest thing for me to not have one picked out yet.

Originally Posted by zoeys_mom I asked coworkers and interviewed the dr (before I had my baby) to confirm I would like him. He is actually very popular and my kids LOVE him, so I was happy with my choice.

You interviewed him? How did you do that? Surely they charge you for an appointment to interview the doctor, right?

Originally Posted by shoppinglinda223 I didn't now anyone with small children that lived near me to ask, so here's how I picked one. Looked up on the insurance company's website a list of doctors near my house (less than 10 miles) and who is associated with the better of the 2 hospitals in our city. From that list, I looked for the following: office hours, # of doctors in practice, years of experience. The doctors we choose had 2 offices, a total of 7 pediatricians and 5 nurse practioners between the 2 locations, open Monday through Friday from 8:30am to 8:30 pm and Saturday from 8:00am to 1:00pm. We called them about 8 weeks from my due date to fill out all of the new patient paperwork. It was a good thing I did this before I gave birth. I gave birth in a different city (about 50 miles away) then where I live because I did not want to change the ob/gyn that I have been seeing since I was 16. I was released from the hospital on a Friday evening and the hospital would not release the baby unless I could prove that she had an appointment with her pediatrician the next day (Saturday) because she had juandice. This pediatrician's office was able to get us in on a Saturday morning with little notice. We are very happy with our pediatrician. She sees the same doctor for every well baby visit. The 3 times she was sick and we had to take her in, we got appointments within 2 hours and saw one of the nurse practioners or other doctors there. I feel more comforatble going to a large practice like this one.

Thanks! We don't know anyone with small children in our town, so I don't have anyone to get a recommendation from. We will probably go this route and hope for the best.

[wavelizard]

When we interviewed our Pediatrician, there was no charge for it. This was 13 (gulp) years ago, so protocol may have changed, but probably not. We're still with "Dr. David", he and "Dr. Michael" have been with us since the births of DD, 12 and DS 10.

It's good to do it before the baby is born, then your Ped. can do the hospital visit. It can also be a little "crazy" after the baby arrives, so better to get it out of the way, esp. since it's one Dr. visit after another when the baby is born .

Good Luck!

[regbyandjulie]

Can I just call and say that I'm a new patient and want to interview them?

[zoeys_mom]

Originally Posted by regbyandjulie You interviewed him? How did you do that? Surely they charge you for an appointment to interview the doctor, right? .

No charge. Just called and asked if we could schedule an appointment to help decide if they were going to be our peditrician. He informed us he only makes those appts after regular office hours which was fine with us. We met in his well waiting room and asked all our questions.
During the interview, he took two calls from parents, so that was a good sign to me that he would be available WHEN I needed him!
Been with Dr Y ever since and as I said, my kids adore him!

Here is an article with some questions you might want to ask
Pregnancy and Baby: Interviewing doctors and pediatricians

This link actually has a better format for the questions
Pediatrician/family doctor interview sheet | BabyCenter

One thing I noticed that both these seem to lack. For me it was VITAL that the dr office have 2 waiting rooms. One for sick kids, and one for well checkups.
That may just be me, but I didn't want my healthy baby having to sit next to a kid with a contagious cough kwim?

[beth119]

Open the phone book...

The one with the smallest ad is the first one you want to call. I wouldn't trust a DR who has the need to advertise heavily ;)

[tmsmalley]

Yes, you just say that you're pregnant and would like to come in and meet with the doctor. They usually schedule these without a charge. The doctor probably has a spiel they go through and then you can ask whatever you want. Mostly it is to get a feel for each other.

In our case, with my oldest (now 5), we had a problem when I was about 30 weeks. They discovered that she had a really enlarged kidney and the doctor at the U/S insisted that I not leave the U/S without the name of a good Ped. I saw my OB/GYN the next day and she came up with the suggestion of the same practice. I went in and saw her and I knew she was MY doctor when she said:

.... and if you've got any crazy ideas about delaying or not doing vaccines, I'm not your doctor.

Since I am a big believer in vaccines, I knew this was a match and I really appreciated that she said that so directly. If I was thinking of doing something differently with vaccines, we wouldn't be wasting each other's time or butting heads. That's what you need to find. Someone that you trust and feel comfortable with.

When we moved 600 miles and had to start over, my realtor (a retired nurse) said:

If you want someone that will stay at the hospital all night with your child if they have to, then you want...

We go 45 minutes to his office for appointments, but we've been very happy with him.

Also, ask about the rest of the practice. You often have to settle for someone else for various reasons so you need to be know what that process is, what happens on evenings/weekends (kids never seem to get sick during office hours), who do you talk to if you call for advice? Be sure they take your insurance and check that they have privileges at the hospital you're giving birth at, and/or at the ER that is closest to your home.

Then just go with your gut. If you don't like them after you start, you can change down the road, you're not hooked in for life.

Tess

[loladooder99]

In the small town that I live in there aren't even peditrians just at the hospital and my friend was told that it would take them 4 months to fit her in to get her sons shots. So family practice doctors take infants. I loved my family practice doctor and since I was already a patient when my son was born in the hospital they asked me who my sons doctor was. So I told them my family practice doctor. But I did call before hand and ask them if they took infants and that I wanted her to be my sons doctor.

[Brandilla]

DH and I had a heck of a time with this when we had DS. We didn't know until a few weeks beforehand that you should choose a pediatrician well in advance. But the hospital assured us that it was no big deal if we didn't have one, because they would just set us up with one. That sounded OK with us. If things didn't work out, we'd find someone else then.

Well, things didn't work out and we couldn't find anyone else. It seemed like everyone we were interested in, was at the same clinic. And at this particular clinic, you never saw the actual doctor, just residents. And we didn't have good experiences with our resident. We went 3 times. The second time, we literally sat in the exam room for over an hour. Come to find out, the nurse never put our chart on the door, so the resident didn't even know we were in there. When someone found us, the chart had been lost! We were there for hours that day... The third time we went for his shots, between the waiting room and exam room, we were waiting for about an hour. When the dr (resident) finally came in, he informed us that they were out of the vaccines and we'd have to go to the health department. They couldn't have told us that like, when we got there, or even called us and cancelled the appt.!?

Finally, I had a DR. appt with our family doc, and I was complaining to her about the clinic and I had DS with me and she seemed really offended that I hadn't just brought him to her. And I explained to her that I had no idea I could use a family doc for my baby. The hospital and my OB/GYN just kept referring to my pediatrician. So, we really had no idea. She was upset with my OB/GYN (who she had referred us to in the first place) and said she was calling them to let them know they need to make it clear that family docs are okay too.

Now, we're super happy. Our doctor is so sweet and loves my little monkey. The nurses all nicknamed him "Charlie Brown" and ask me to please bring him with me even if it's just an appt. for myself.. lol I'm SO much more comfortable. It's almost like family. So, long story short, if you have a family doc that you're comfortable with and have a good relationship with, I wouldn't look anywhere else. :) Hope my ramblings helped lol