Doctors in CR/Iowa area (Des Moines, Cedar Rapids: ob-gyn, health insurance, transfer to)

[TFPublishing]

I am new to the Cedar Rapids/Iowa area and I am looking for a family doctor. Is there a magazine or a reference tool to help choose a doctor? I've noticed 2 huge hospitals with in walking distance of each other and its a bit overwhelming, let alone the amount of private practice Ph-D's in the area. Any one have thoughts or ideas on what to do?

[Busch71]

The 2 hospitals are Mercy and St. Lukes. Mercy is on the corner of 10th St and St. Lukes is the one right by I-380. Sorry, I don't have any info on doctors. My old doctor, Dr. Utter, passed away shortly before I moved in 2002.

[WoodwardGirl]

Do you have some sort of health insurance? It sounds like maybe you're not from the U.S.? If you don't have health insurance, you really need to get some, or to become familiar with the reduced-price clinics.

If you have health insurance, plans generally "reward" you with lower fees for choosing particular ("in-network") doctors. Then you find a practice whose doctors are in that plan and whose office is convenient to where you live (or work, but you usually change jobs more often than you move, plus you usually want a doctor on a day you're NOT going to work). There are usually multiple doctors in the practice, and maybe you do some research to select one with whom you want a scheduled appointment. But if you are sick, you usually just take whomever in the practice has the first available appointment.

Be forewarned that many doctors practice primary care out of the "emergency walk-in" clinics. Getting and keeping scheduled appointments with these folks can be more frustrating because of the first-come, first-serve nature of the rest of the clientele, i.e. you may make an appointment with your doctor for 10:00, but his 9:30 walk-in needs a lot of work and you end up having to wait. On the other hand, if it's you with the urgent need, they have all your records and you're seeing your plan doctor -- thus lower fee -- when you "walk-in."

One thing we'd never considered was whether the doctor had privileges at the hospital. Usually, doctors are "aligned" with one of the two hospitals, just as health plans are; it is competitive between the hospitals, but not hostile -- folks work together amazingly well and most medical records that are available electronically are available to both hospitals. Anyway, when my husband was hospitalized, we learned that our family doctor happens to have privileges at the hospital -- I'm not sure why they call it a privilege because it means that when the other doctors in the practice go home, he goes to the hospital to do rounds, and does the same before "work" the next morning! But it was great for us to have the same doctor on board and not have to switch to someone new once dh was in the hospital. If a doctor doesn't have privileges at the hospital, it just means that, upon hospitalization, someone new will be your attending physician. If you are there for surgery or with a specialty, that will be the case, anyway, but I have to say that we found it very helpful that our family doctor remained on dh's case!

I should add that both hospitals are excellent, and will not hesitate to transfer to University Hospitals in Iowa City, which is considered a regional tertiary (i.e. a hospital for hospitals) medical center, if there is need. Medical care in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area easily rivals if not surpasses anything available in the rest of the state, and Des Moines' health care is stellar, so that's saying a lot. There are people who relocate to this area just because of access to superb health care.

If you are female and wish to have birth control prescribed, ask about that when you select a doctor; at least one doctor in town is Catholic and chooses not to prescribe birth control. Most health care plans allow you to elect a separate care provider for gyn stuff, so you can always go to Ob-Gyn Associates and deal with a female Nurse Practitioner there, which is nice because they have labs, mammogram and exam facilities all located together -- actually, a complete clinic is co-located with each of the hospitals -- which is very convenient.

Does this help?

[TFPublishing]

Yes this helps alot, thank you. No I don't have insurance yet because I just moved here. I was just looking for a family doctor vs. going to a hospital. Where I come from, Florida, they have periodicals or magazines where doctors advertise and tell about them selves and their specialties. That makes it so much easier. I guess I'll just pick up the phone book.

Thanks for your help though!