Thyroid Doctors

[veronicafm]

Is there somewhere you can find how doctors are rated besides just googling and finding 6 or 7 responses? I just learned that my doctor is leaving my insurance provider so I'm being referred to someone else. I was thinking that may not be a bad thing since my doctor doesn't seem to really care how large my thyroid is getting. When I looked up the new doctor I see he's been practicing for 50 years! I know that's a lot of experience but it makes me worry about any new info that he may not be current on. What do you think?

Veronica

[Barb135]

Military doctors, usually, are required to go only by TSH and prescribe only levothyroxine (T4 med), whether that's what they "want" to do or not, so that doctor may or may not be suitable, since you're looking for one who will test and go more by Free T3 and Free T4 and is open to prescribing all types of thyroid medications...  I'd recommend that you try for a phone interview or ask for a meet and greet with this doctor to find out what his testing/treatment protocol is.

[veronicafm]

Thanks. I will see how it goes. I believe this doctor is a previous military doctor
.

[veronicafm]

Thank you!

[Barb135]

Sometimes the older doctors are better because they started practicing when symptoms were more important and before TSH became the gold standard in thyroid testing, so he might be more amenable to treating by symptoms than by lab numbers.  On the other hand, the labs he orders might be outdated, but then, I recently went to a very young, recently graduated endo and she ordered mostly outdated labs, too, so there's really no guarantee...

Often, you can call the doctor's office and interview the doctor via a nurse or office manager.  During the "interview" you can ask what tests the doctor routinely orders, what medications s/he is willing to prescribe and whether or not the doctor goes more by symptoms or strictly by the lab numbers.  Some doctors will schedule "meet and greet" appointments, so you can sit down and ask the questions yourself.  That way you can meet the doctor and decide for yourself if you like them or not.

The endo I mentioned above is a very nice person, with excellent bedside manner, etc, but not a good thyroid doctor...

[Emily443]

http://www.thyroiddoctors.com/ hope it helps:)