Questions to Ask Your Pediatrician
When you go for the “get acquainted visit” before your baby is born, you should bring with you a list of questions. The doctor’s answers to your questions are important and you should make notes. Follow up on any answers you don’t understand. Be aware of the doctor’s style and how he answers the questions.
Here is a list of some questions you should ask:
- What hospitals do you use/ you may want to be sure the doctor uses the hospital you prefer. Does he have a preference for a hospital far from your home? If so, find out why. Perhaps that hospital offers special services or has a different approach to taking care of children.
- What hours is your office open? With medicine becoming more competitive, doctors are doing more to attract and keep patients. This includes offering evening and Saturday office hours. If a doctor’s office hours are inconvenient for your family, you may want to find another doctor.
- What services do you provide in your office? Many doctors’ now provide a number of services in their offices to make things easier for you. For example, they may perform many laboratory tests there, or take blood samples that need to be sent out to a laboratory for special tests. Many doctors perform hearing and vision tests in their offices. The more done in the office, the fewer places you may have to take your child.
- What should I do if my child is sick at night or on the weekend and I can’t reach you? Most doctors arrange to have other physicians “cover” for them [take care of their patients] when they are not working or out of town. Be sure the doctor has such a system. Find out who the covering doctors are because you may have to deal with them. Be wary of a doctor who tells you to take your sick child to the emergency room when he’s not around.
- How do I fit in to the care of my child? Some doctors want parents to active participants in the medical care of their children. Other doctors want to be completely in charge and make all the decisions without input from parents. You need to know the doctor’s feelings in this area. If they conflict with yours, the doctor probably isn’t right for you.
- How do you feel about patient education? In this day of increasing medical awareness by parents, most doctors encourage parental education. However, there are still some doctors who buck this trend, believing that a little learning is a dangerous thing.
- What are your feelings on “routine” medical care? There is a controversy about some aspects of pediatric care [for example, routine immunizations and circumcisions]. Is this doctor dogmatic in his approach? Is his way the only right way? If you have strong feelings about your child’s care, such an approach may lead to conflict.
- What are your fees? This used to be a difficult question, one that both parents and doctors avoided, but this is changing. There are large differences in what doctors’ charge for the same services. Get a price list for the routine things like well-baby examinations.
- What type of training did you receive? Any doctor should be willing to tell you about his training-medical school, residency, and any special training. Don’t be impressed by a wall full of fancy diplomas. In and of themselves, they may not mean much. Almost every medical organization sends out diplomas, and many don’t signify much except the doctor paid his dues. The competence of the physician isn’t measured by the number of diplomas and certificates he has. It is, however, a good idea to ask him if he is board certified-that is, if he has demonstrated by completion of certain requirements and passage of an examination competency in his specialty.
After you have made your visits, talk to some of your friends. Find out whom they use and why. Ask them the questions you asked the doctor [especially about service and availability], and see if you get the same answers.
When you have all this information, you will be in a position to make an educated decision. Once you decide, let the doctor know. Find out if there’s any information her office needs to know about you. If your children have records with another doctor, arrange for them to be sent.
After all this work, there’s still a chance you’ll decide, after a few visits, that your new doctor isn’t what you expected. You should discus this with her. Try to explain why you aren’t satisfied. Maybe there’s a misunderstanding that’s easy to correct. Your doctor’s reaction to what you say is important. If she gets mad or rude, you should look for another doctor. Don’t feel obligated to stick with her if you don’t agree with her on some important matter, like her approach, treatment, or fees.
When you change doctors, you should get your child’s old medical records. This is easy to do. Just send a note to his former doctor asking that his records be sent to the new doctor. Physicians will do this as a service to all patients. Most states require doctors to do this. The law says the contents of the records belong to the patient even though the actual records belong to the physician. When you send your request, be sure to sign it. Without a signature, the records cannot be sent.