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D.C. Area Babies
Questions about choosing a pediatrician
We're narrowing down our list of pediatrician offices, and I'd love to get some feedback from moms about how important these factors are to you. What is most important, least important, etc?
1. Regular weekend hours for sick visits. One of the offices I'm looking at doesn't have regular weekend hours, but has an answering service with doctors on call; one office has regular Saturday hours; and one has both Saturday and Sunday hours.
2. How busy the office is, wait times, etc. (this is mostly anecdotal information).
3. Lactation consultant on staff.
4. Whether the doctors have privileges at the closest/most convenient hospital to you (and the hospital where you will be delivering).
1. Regular weekend hours for sick visits. One of the offices I'm looking at doesn't have regular weekend hours, but has an answering service with doctors on call; one office has regular Saturday hours; and one has both Saturday and Sunday hours.
2. How busy the office is, wait times, etc. (this is mostly anecdotal information).
3. Lactation consultant on staff.
4. Whether the doctors have privileges at the closest/most convenient hospital to you (and the hospital where you will be delivering).
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Questions about choosing a pediatrician
1. We haven't used weekend hours but I like that the practice has them. FWIW my doctor growing up did not have weekend hours and my three brothers and I were AOK.
2. Waiting kills me. I hate it. This is really important to me.
3. I don't think this is critical. You will figure out lactation within the first month of LOs life. After that it is not as important to have access to one on staff. There are so many other resources at all the area hospitals and the breastfeeding center downtown.
4. This is more important to me. As long as you are living where you think you will be living for a while, I think the offices convenience to your home (and this should usually include your local hospital) is ideal.
Honestly, the most important thing to me was a similar philosophy of care with regards to medications, shots, bfing, etc. I don't want a dr. who will prescribe antibiotics every time my child goes in there with a sniffle, for example.
Also have Sat. hours is nice since you work. I really like my family physician, but she works only part time (she's a mom and prioritizes time with her kids) so I found another practice with better hours for us.
1. We've only used weekend hours once, but I do like knowing they're there...
2. The busy part doesn't bother me - but we are at an office with a large number of docs and nurse practitioners so we can always get a sick appointment very easily and the well ones are always in advance so we have no problem getting who we want. As far as wait times, I try to remind myself that if they are running late there may be a baby that needs their attention more than mine. Once when ds had RSV we had to get several breathing treatments, talk to the doctor a ton, I'm sure we created a wait for some other people.
3. Lactation consultant on staff was a huge one for me because this meant I just paid my regular copay every time I went to see them.
4. They did not have privileges where we delivered and that made no difference at all to us. We also have had an ER visit there and they do not have privileges, it was no big deal at all, you almost always have to follow up with the pedi anyway so you see them then. If he did have more major issues the hospital where they do have privileges is just 10 min. further and we would go there.
Good Luck!
Number 4 would be important to me, but you can always have an oncall pediatrician do the hospital exam.
Number 3 was important to me. I was glad my pedi had one, but I ended up using the lactation consultant in the hospital. By the time I was out of the hospital I had the swing of things.
Number 2.....I wouldn't worry much about that.
Number 1 wouldn't be important to me at all. Little people seem to get sick when the doctor is closed. I think they all have an oncall nurse/doctor. There's also always after hours pediatric urgent care or the ER..
1. I like that mine has weekend hours, although we've never had to use them. They're only open Saturday mornings, though.
2. This is important for sick visits - you usually schedule well-baby visits way in advance so the wait then is usually not that bad. I've never had a problem with my pedi; if I call in the morning with a sick baby they always have appointments that afternoon.
3. This was CRUCIAL for me. It's possible you'll never use her, but if breastfeeding is really important to you (such that you would keep trying when faced with issues) then this should be near the top.
4. This wasn't really that important to me. My pedi was not at the hospital where I delivered and it was so not a big deal. They also don't have privileges at the hospital most convenient to us (that would be HC, they're at Sibley and somewhere else). Knock wood, that hasn't been an issue yet.
So I guess I would rank them 3, 2, 1, 4, with the actual top criteria being, as MrsTiara said, the general feeling of the place, whether they had a similar philosophy, etc.
TTC #2: BFP 12/17/11, m/c 1/7/12 and D&C 1/12/12
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1) More important to us than weekend hours are evening hours. Our pedi's last appt. is at 7:40 pm or something like that, which is critical for us - both of us work.
2) We chose a practice with a lot of dr.s and nurses, but I didn't realize what an advantage that would be when I signed on. Now I realize that with all those options, they never really get that far behind in appts, and I can always get a sick visit day of, which I love.
3) I used the LC's at the hospital I delivered, not the pedi.
4) My pedi office has docs who have privileges both at the hospital I delivered (so they could do the newborn checks) and other docs who have privileges at the hospital closest to us (which I liked a few months ago when DD #2 had a weird intestinal infection and was hospitalized for four days). So we have the best of both worlds.
1. This was very important to me. We've actually taken C to the doc on three different Sundays (once following a crappy Saturday night visit to urgent care).
2. I'm pretty patient in dr's offices (my obgyn and dentist have ridiculous waits). I'd heard that our pedi had long wait times, but I've never really noticed.
3. This never even occurred to me. I used the HC lactation center. As pro-LC as I am, I agree with pp that said you will likely only use an LC for the first month anyway.
4. This was fairly important to us. Our practice has a lot of different docs, but I like some continuity of care and having one less thing to think about in the hospital was great.
Ease of getting an appt. is most important to me. DS was born premature, so he has a weak immune system and seems to come down with stuff quickly. I loved that it was easy to get same-day appts. and our pedi is open on Saturdays. Also, the on-call doc for evenings/Sundays usually get back to you within 20min., which is great.
The other important factor for us was having a separate sick waiting room for the reason I mentioned above.
I wasn't able to BF, so an LC wasn't important to me.
We live in upper MoCo, so we don't have too many hospital choices. We Shady Grove, which is the only peds ER in the I-270 area, so that's where all the pedis have privelidges.
2. How busy the office is, wait times, etc. (this is mostly anecdotal information). While it's great to have minimal wait time, it's more important to me is being able to get a sick appt on the same day it's requested, which involves a larger staff and a usually busy office.
3. Lactation consultant on staff. I agree with pps that LC access is only critical in the first month or so. For MoCo, Holy Cross LCs are great, and Shady Grove has a free weekly support group with LCs that I used.
4. Whether the doctors have privileges at the closest/most convenient hospital to you (and the hospital where you will be delivering). It was one less thing to worry about in the hospital.
1) I agree that babies/kids get sick at all hours, but when DD was sick just this past weekend, it was super nice to get into the doctor on Saturday. It's pretty important for me for them to have weekend hours, if only for the piece of mind.
2) Extremely important. We left our last pedi partly for this reason. Do you really want to sit in a doctor's office (with lots of other sick kids) with a baby or even a toddler (that you have to entertain) for an hour? It's not fun. Our new pedi gets you in with only a minimal wait. It's fantastic.
3) This was important to me while pregnant, but once the baby was here and I actually needed an LC...guess what? The LC was booked solid a month in advance (they usually only have a limited number of appts per day/week...I didn't know this). When you need an LC, you need one right away. So, I don't think it's that important. Use them at the hospital or hire one to come to your house.
4) While pregnant, it was very important to me that the pedi have privileges at the hospital I was delivering at, but in hindsight, it doesn't seem super important. The hospital has qualified pedi's on staff.
Having 3 kids who seem to be sick more often then not, I have very strong opinions on pediatricians.
#1 is extremely important to us. I cannot tell you how many times I've taken a child to the Dr for a sick visit on Saturday for ear infections, strep throat-stuff that can't wait until Monday. I think it's important that they at least have some weekend hours not just a Dr on call. An on call Dr can't treat the child and you'll most likely end up at an urgent care.
#2 is somewhat important. You don't want an overrun office but waits especially at the pedi can't be avoided. Most times our wait isn't too bad, other days it can be fairly long.
#3 and 4 were not important at all to me. When my kids were born I had the ped from the hospital take care of the babies. We went to our pedi a few days later.
You may also want to ask how easy it is to get sick appointments. At our Dr if you call for a sick appt you can get one within a few hours 99% of the time. This isn't the case for all practices.
Weekend hours have been important to us. We don't have to wait until Mon to be seen if we think it is an ear infection Friday night. Ours has Sat hours for sick visits and they come in on Sunday if they have people to see.
We often call off hours and I have heard some practices now charge for this. That would be a deal breaker for me unless every other pedi did it in the area.
I agree about the large number of pedis being great for not falling very behind schedule. I think that also allows them to get you in quickly for sick visits, have that extra time on the weekends and always have a pedi on call on nights and weekends for you to call.
I had lactation consultants through work for phone calls and a discount rate if I needed them to come to me so this wasn't an issue for us.
1. We have only used Saturday hours once but it prevented a trip to the ER so it was nice. More important to me is that you get a same day sick appointment. I recently called at 3:30pm on a Friday and they still saw us that day.
2. I hate waiting- I think it shows serious disorganization and I have no patience for it since I am always early. I have stopped seeing doctors because of wait times so I am happy that our office has minimal waits.
3. Our office has one but I never used.
4. Our pediatrican did not come to the hospital I delivered at but it was no big deal to us. The Sibley pediatricians were great and kept great notes/records and even called our new doc.