Choosing a doctor

[Robert]

Hi Ally,

I have a fancy PD doctor at a fancy medical center that I travel to see when telemed will not do (which it has for the past year and a half).  Which means I do not use the local neurologist who has PD on his list of diseases he covers.

Early on, when I told my family physician what my meds were and then the frequent changes in dosage and timing, he asked if I wanted a second opinion because how I was being treated was not similar to his other patients who had PD and were being treated by the local neurologist group at the hospital.  I told him my current fancy PD doctor is my third opinion neurologist, the one who got the diagnosis right, and I trust him and his PD treatment philosophy completely.

With that, I now appreciate my family doctor for fully cooperating with me and my fancy PD doctor in making sure I get proper overall care.   He can see that it is working well for me by seeing how when I am having problems my fancy PD doctor so far quickly knows what to do make things better for me.

Where I live here in northern Illinois, most all of the medical practices have been bought out/up? by a few big Hospitals and their giant medical groups.  I can’t blame them, all of the required computerized reporting and recordkeping the new laws require of the doctors in order to be reimbursed by Medicare etc. has made it financially impossible for most doctors to have independent practices.  A four doctor practice has the same administration requirements and costs as a 50 doctor group.  But the style of care that the hospital controlled physician groups offer, now that they have monopoly status, does remind me of what I remember sick call to be when I was in the Navy 50 years ago.  You get in line and wait to be seen by whoever has duty that day.  You are sent somewhere to have a test some day and you wait for the results.  Wait wait wait.   I have had to sign up with an independent Concierge style internist doctor group to get the individualized personal attention that I think I require to get along properly with my PD.  I know that this is not something that many or most people have available to them.  I am thankful that I do.

I suppose as I age, I will need to somehow include a local neurologist on my care team especially if I ever need to be hospitalized and am not able to be my own care advocate.  My personal physician has told to me that he will make sure that it will go well when I do.  My fancy PD doctor has told me that phone calls and Skype easily allow him to be a long-distance consultant to my PCP doctor if needed.

So that’s my story.

Thanks,

Robert C