New Year Resolutions and Choosing Your Doctor

By Michael S Saoud, DMD

Michael S. Saoud, DMD

. https://www.drsaoud.com/

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New Year Resolutions and Choosing Your Doctor

As you prepare for the holidays and start a new year, the resolutions become a hot topic. Is one of your resolutions to take better care of yourself? Do you need to find doctors that truly focus on attaining optimal health and then prevention and maintaining that health?

There are a lot of factors that go into choosing your doctors. It all starts with deciding what is important to you. For example, is it convenience, location, evening/weekend hours, cost (insurance) or some other non-quality related aspect of care? Or, would your determining criteria be the personal relationship between you and the doctor, their attention to detail, the quality of the care provided, a commitment to continuing education, and a high recommendation from current patients and awards from peer groups?

For most people, it is a combination of many of the above factors. It really requires a lot of careful thought. As with any service, it comes back to what value you place on the service. Is it a commodity where it's all the same, like a gallon of gas, so just get the cheapest or is there something more that makes that service a greater importance. Does it impact your long term health and quality of life? Is the easiest and the cheapest initially the best long term? Or, will you be spending more time, money and heartache down the road?

The answers to these questions are very personal and they cannot be made for you. If you are the type of person that takes their health seriously, this simple question requires a lot of careful consideration.

If you have made the choice to find the best doctor, here are some questions you should ask.

1. What is the doctor's philosophy of care?

2. How much continuing education do you take per year?

3. How many patients do you see at one time? You may be paying full fee, but if others are not, the office needs to make up the difference on volume. Does that mean shorter appointments, difficulty getting in to see the doctor and lower quality materials and care?

4. How long have you been in practice and where?

5. Does this doctor work and live in the community and therefore give back and have a vested interest?

6. Can you have a tour of the office and meet the doctor before committing to anything?

I am sure that you can come up with many additional questions that are not listed here. Any office that truly values you as a patient should be happy to talk with you either over the phone or in person. Remember, you are not an intrusion in their day, but rather the reason they have a day. A little effort on the front end of finding the right doctors can lead to a relationship that pays off for a lifetime for you and your family and friends.