Moved To A New Town And Looking For A Primary Care Physician? 3 Things They Should Offer You
If you have moved to a new town you will need to find new medical care, such as a primary care physician. There are likely many of them available in the area which can make it difficult to decide what one would work best for you. The first thing you need to do is check with your insurance plan as you may be required to see only certain doctors. Once you do this, you can then start looking. To help you, below are three things the primary care physician should offer to their patients.
Offer Online Access
Many physician's offices now have a website with a portal for their patients. You will be given a sign on and password to log into the portal.
With this you can access information, such as information about your doctor's visits, help with questions you may have about your problem, and have access to your bill.
To make things easy for you, the website should also allow you to pay your bill online, as well as set up appointments with your doctor. In most cases you will be able to make changes to your appointment time, if needed. For example, you may need to cancel an appointment.
The office will allow you to call them anytime you want if you do not want to use the web portal they have setup.
Same Day or Walk in Visits
There may be times when you are very sick and need to see your doctor that day. Some primary care physicians keep a few openings open during the day, so you can do this. This will prevent you from having to go to another clinic that may not be in your insurance plan or prevent you from having to go to an emergency room, which is much more expensive than the primary care physician.
If there are enough doctors in the office, they may also offer walk in appointments. You will likely have to wait much longer to see the doctor, but it will be worth it.
Open on Evenings and Weekends
If you work a full-time job it can be difficult to make an appointment with the doctor during your working hours. To help with this, there are some primary care physicians that stay open longer in the evenings, and there are some that are open on the weekends. This may be only Saturday, or it may be both Saturday and Sunday. This can help you save money as you will not have to miss work to go to the doctor.
Talk with a few primary care physicians, like those at Calverthealth, in your area to see which one you feel most comfortable with.