I don't do well with change sometimes. Ok, most of the time. Well... honestly, almost all of the time change throws me for a bit of a loop.
I am moving my healthcare from 4 doctors 50 miles away to 1 doc who is 15 minutes away. I was going to get an endo here, but I don't really need a specialist endo, at least not at this stage. I can't afford the fancy MD/PhD nutritionist who was fabulous. I'm not having any more babies, so I don't really need an ob/gyn (debatable). My former primary care doc just left her practice and opened a retainer-based center (much too pricey even with my old paycheck and insurance). It was the "perfect storm" for a big healthcare change.
The first place I started looking was my insurance website, of course. (That speaks volumes about US healthcare.) You could search by location, gender, language and specialty, but not by degree - MD or DO. My last PCP was a DO and I wanted another one.
An osteopathic physician (DO) has very similar training to an MD You can read more here. I find them to be more holistic, less reliant on medication, and more open to alternative treatments like chiropractic or hypnosis. dLife has a laugh-out-loud diagnosis story with an osteopath in it.
Surprisingly, after wading through a couple pages of MDs, there were three DOs within reasonable distance and two of them were in the same medical group as my pediatrician! My first appointment was yesterday. The office was nice (though no waterfalls, Michelle), the staff pleasant, the wait short AND they have an HbA1c machine on-site! SCORE!
The doctor who specializes in diabetes was booking new patients for MAY, so I saw Dr S. She seemed alright. My HbA1c was 5.8, which is up from 5.7 last July. I guess exercise can't erase all dietary indiscretions, but that's another post. I got my prescriptions and a lab request for a thyroid test. She wanted to do the whole workup and cholesterol and all, but was amenable to waiting in deference to my new insurance.
I feel like I hit a slot machine! I may have found my new healthcare painlessly and on the first try! We'll see for sure in June.
