My wife relayed an interesting anecdote. She's doing temporary (locum tenens) work to fill in those empty slots while word of mouth brings patients to her door and a recruiter she worked with changed jobs and asked her how to find a doctor in the Atlanta area. Her advice was so good that I thought I'd blog it for the similarly perplexed who have good health insurance for the first time and don't know how to pick a doctor.
1. Contact the local hospitals and ask them for a list of nearby doctors who are taking new patients
2. Start calling the offices up and check whether they take your insurance and whether they would be willing to let you tour the office and meet the doctor.
3. Drop the practices from your list who are too busy to do such a thing or are anything other than happy to do it.
4. If you have multiple doctors who will allow you to tour, take the tour and pick the best one based on a checklist. Here's a sample:
How much do you like the doctor?
How convenient is the office location
Are the office hours convenient to your lifestyle?
how flexible are they if you would need to make an appointment outside regular office hours?