Dr Reviews: What They Can Do For You

It wasn’t too long ago when you had to look to your friends and family for dr reviews you could trust. Since it was unlikely that they had a great deal of experience with the doctors in your community, the information you gleaned from these interviews was probably not going to be all that helpful. Today, that net can be cast much wider and catch much more useful fish. Internet sites now collect ratings and opinions from all over the world, helping you make your health care decisions on a much more informed basis.

Dr reviews can help you determine things that aren’t obvious from an advertisement or a blurb in the phone book. For instance, only by listening to existing patients can you find out how difficult it is to make an appointment. The ad certainly isn’t going to tell you this. Listening to one friend tell you about it doesn’t give you a lot to go on, either. After all, their experience could have been entirely atypical. Only by reading a host of opinions can you begin to form a consensus. True, not everyone is going to mention the availability of appointments. But if it is a significant issue either way, you can be sure that you will see it mentioned. These sites are also a good way to find out how flexible the office is in scheduling those appointments.

If you’ve ever been to the doctor, you know how frustrating it can be to arrive on time for your appointment, only to sit for a half hour or more in the waiting room. You feel almost violated, like you are intentionally being taken advantage of. You can complain to the doctor or the staff, but are they really going to care? Well, these days they pretty much have to care, because a disgruntled patient isn’t going to keep their complaints to themselves. Looking through the dr reviews, you can quickly see which physicians care about their patients as customers and which ones treat their patients as if they had no other choice of health care. As a patient, you always have a choice. Doctors who don’t realize this will soon fall by the wayside as these ratings sites grow in popularity.

Because these sites encourage free speech (up to a point—obviously outright libel is not tolerated), you will find pricing information as well. This is virtually unheard of in the medical community, but it can help you assess where you need to go, what insurance you’ll require, and whether the prices are fair and competitive.