Finding a primary care doctor is a lot like dating. Much of the success of the care is about fit, but also about communication style and accessibility. As a patient myself, I have definitely been frustrated trying to find the right person who will help advance my healthcare goals but also help me navigate the complex health care system. Here’s the deal: Most people do not have the time, resources, or online platforms to easily find the right match. You need to ask the right questions to find the right fit.
Here are 5 Key Tips to Finding the Right Primary Care Doctor For You
- Communication Style
First, I want you to ask yourself what kind of communication you prefer and fits best into your life. Email? Texting? Traditional phone calls? You want to find a primary care doctor that communicates similarly to you. Some physicians will communicate via multiple modalities, but they should be able to tell you clearly how they will communicate with you for both non-urgent and urgent issues. If they use a patient portal primarily to communicate with their patients, how often do they check portal messages and have dedicated time to respond to patient messages? If you don’t ever want to interact with a patient portal, generally it’s best not to join a practice where your physician will only be corresponding via portal.
Gaining a clear understanding about communication style from a prospective primary care physician sets expectations and builds a foundation for successful patient-physician relationship.
- Clinical Interests
Make sure to ask if your prospective primary care doctor has any specific clinical interests. The vast majority of primary care doctors receive training in chronic disease management, prevention, screening, and outpatient acute care, but medicine is vast and ever-evolving. Primary care doctors get into this field because they often have multiple interests and like doing a lot of different things. You want to see if those interests align with your health goals. For example, my career prior to entering medicine was anchored in women’s health and reproductive health. Many of my clinical interests in my primary care practice today include women’s health, sexual and reproductive health across the lifespan, management of perimenopause/menopause, and management of sexual dysfunction. I want to see patients who need this kind of care and who I can partner with, but will teach me new things as well.
If you are interested in longevity medicine, medical weight loss, aesthetics, health equity, etc, you should be seeing a primary care doctor who might be able to explore these topics with you because they are also interested in them.
- Practice Environment
A primary care doctor is more than just the doctor–it is also about the team of people behind the care you are receiving. I want you to ask yourself how you feel when you speak to staff team members on the phone to set up your appointment. How did you feel when you walked into the waiting room? When you were assisted by the medical assistant in the exam room?
The best primary care practices have staff that have been with the practice for an extended period of time. This signals that they are well-treated and that the working environment fosters relationships, loyalty, and meaning in the day-to-day. Happy, approachable staff = quality primary care practice.
- Accessibility
Accessibility can mean a lot of things and I would focus on it in two key ways: Geography and Contact. Geography is fairly straightforward. You don’t want to be traveling many miles or for extended periods of time to physically see your primary care doctor. Proximity is important when you have an acute issue that needs to be addressed. Telehealth and virtual visits have solved a lot of this, but often there is no substitute for being seen in person. Keeping your primary care doctor within an 8-10 mile radius gives you better access to your care.
Now for the “contact.” When you have an urgent issue that likely needs to be addressed in person, you have to ask what the likelihood is that you are going to see your doctor. Many practices design the schedule to have 1-2 “sick visit” slots per day. For large practices where the doctor has many patients on their panel, this essentially guarantees that you won’t be able to see your doctor. You may see another physician in the practice or an advanced practice provider such as a nurse practitioner or physician assistant. While this may do the trick in the moment, it does not guarantee continuity of care and can lead to medical errors. Being able to see your doctor, who has spent time getting to know you and your health, has been shown to produce higher quality care and reduce medical errors.
- Network and Relationships
A key piece of the primary care doctor role is helping to coordinate care within the medical system. Your specialists can be essential in giving you the highest quality and most evidenced-based treatments, but the sad truth is that they often don’t talk to each other and operate in silos.
Your primary care doctor should have time and support built into their schedule to access outside records from specialists, speak to specialist team members, and interpret data. Be sure to ask what kind of relationships your primary care doctor has with surrounding medical systems, academic medical centers, and if they have preferred specialists they work with. Relationships make picking up the phone to talk about a key issue all the more streamlined.
While these tips are certainly not the only way to find your “right fit,” they can get you answers that will most impact your overall experience with a prospective primary care doctor. I hope they help guide you to the care relationship that brings you health and satisfaction.
Dr. Taskier is Primary Care Physician, board certified Family Medicine with a special focus on sexual and reproductive health, women’s health, and gender affirming care.