Pediatrician Process (FTM)

ChristmasCookie · August 2017

I'm technically supposed to choose a pediatrician before I deliver, right? I feel like I heard somewhere that your pediatrician will come to the hospital to meet and examine baby? Maybe that is different everywhere? Well, I found one whose office is basically right across the street! Bonus for a winter baby! I know my insurance will cover this pediatrician, and I'm not positive, but pretty sure DH's will too-- baby girl will be going on his insurance once she's got a SS identity and all that good stuff.

GoogleMD · August 2017

Whether or not a pediatrician comes to the hospital will vary from doctor to doctor. My pediatrician does come to the hospital and is the assigned doctor following the baby while they are there. If my son or this baby would ever need to be admitted my pediatrician would be the one managing their care.

Some pedi will just have the hospital staff doctor follow the baby after delivery and then usually want to see them within the first week following birth.

smorzandoj · August 2017

Pedis do not always come to the hospital but they will be examined by one while there. Both of my boys were delivered at a hospital our pedi doesn't service which I was fine with bc she is amazing. This time we are at her hospital but I do not expect her to be there as she is the medical director and doesn't generally take new paitients aside from newborn siblings.

You should make an appointment to meet the pedi before you settle. They all have office hours for this purpose. Remember location isn't everything.

And yes choose before but dont hesitate to switch after birth if you end up not feeling comfortable for whatever reason with the practice.

GoogleMD · August 2017

Also, if you are planning to put baby on a different insurance let the hospital know. My hospital will just bill mom's insurance in anticipation of adding baby. If that is not the plan you need to let them know to save yourself a headache later. I will also suggest adding baby before you receive the social. I had to go back and forth with insurance because his 1 week pedi appt was billed before I had called to add him. I was able to get him added without a social and just updated it once it arrived.

winnie1122 · August 2017

Our hospital had a couple pedis that rotated there and attended any baby who was born while they were there. I LOVED the pediatrician who attended DS at the hospital, but her office was all the way across town and I wanted to find a closer one, so that bummed me out a bit. The one we went with I still can't decide if I like or not. I thought it would be nice to have a male pedi so DS could stay with him for a long time (I know I wanted to switch to a female once I hit 10-11, even though I really liked my doc) but I'm kind of feeling like that's a secondary concern now that I've dealt with a doc I'm not 100% comfortable with. He wasn't very supportive of my breastfeeding and really that first year with the pedi is more about what YOU are doing rather than the baby, so I left the pedi in tears a few times feeling super overwhelmed and unsupported. Lots of PP hormones didn't with that though, lol. I've stayed because I honestly don't know anything about any other pedis in my area and the doc is at least nice to DS.

the_other_mother · August 2017

The hospital I delivered at was not the closest to home. We drove a little further for a different birth experience. So the pediatrician we chose was a little closer to home, and therefore didn't see patients at that hospital. In the hospital we just used the pediatrician provided. We were able to schedule a consultation with the pedi before the birth. Then they wanted baby to be seen within a few days after birth.

TattoosandLace · August 2017

We just use the "on call" ped while we're there and then move to our family practice once baby starts check ups.

karcerplus3 · August 2017

The pedi we chose didn't have rights at the hospital I delivered at so I used whoever was on rotation that day. I had to call and make an appt for the boys to be seen by our pedi as soon as we got home, so maybe 4 days old?

Most pedis offices will have either a meet and greet/open house type event for new parents to come and talk to the doctors and ask questions or someone they can talk to over the phone to give you all the information. Ask other couples with children who they use. You'll probably get more honest feedback and even specific doctors names to see if there are mutiple doctors at a practice.

wal2017 · August 2017

Some questions to ask when shopping around for a Ped are:
1) do they accept your insurance - and maybe look at other insurances if you are considering switching down the road
2) what are their office hours? Do they accept walk-ins daily, or just during flu season, etc? Do they have multiple offices so you can always see a Doctor, No matter the day?
3) are they supportive of breast feeding, cloth diapering, alternative diets, etc - anything you are looking to try, you may want to make sure the practice philosophy matches up so you feel supported and well informed. A lot of peditricians get next to no training in breast feeding so that's a biggy.
4) immunizations! Most doctors are going to insist on immunizations and some practices don't allow patients who are not immunized on the prescribed schedule- so if you have different plans, make sure you find that out in advance
5) payment plan policies , no-show policies , rescheduling policies. Hey, we've all been there and forgotten an appointment or had to cancel last minute. It's worth checking to see how they design these policies and what leniency they provide. Note- if you hate sitting around in the waiting room forever , you may want a practice w a strict policy--- it prevents habitual no-shows from forgetting to come to appointments and therefore screwing up the daily calendar.
6) additional care-- beyond sick visits and well visits, do the doctors provide any new parent training, do they offer services from nutritionists or psychologists, do they provide classes and education for parenting of kids and teens,too? It's nice to not just be referred out to specialists or sent home with a 1 page handout about the problem you're facing.
7) ease of scheduling and accessing medical records. Do they have a patient portal so you can look back at old records and keep track of appts? Can you email doctors or nurses with questions?
8) parking! We will all be hauling the babies to multiple appointments through late winter. Consider parking and ease of access (obviously this is less important than the medical care, but still....)

thats all i can think of off the top of my head. Can you tell I work for a pediatric practice and do outreach for new patients??

meatballs37 · August 2017

I just wanted to add that you want to make sure they are accepting new patients. Call your insurance and see which ones are, and then base your research off that.

msunshine123 · August 2017

Our office has an after hours pager number that the pediatrician on call will call you back on and answer questions for you too which is really nice. We found ours via word of mouth - several friends recommended.

charlottemom19 · August 2017

Just to add on to the excellent advice from @wal2017 and other posters above --- if you end up going the breastfeeding route, some pediatrician practices now retain full time lactation consultants on their staff. If it sounds like something you might want, it's worth seeing whether or not it is available. This was one feature that I found attractive about our pediatrician, and having it tied in with our doctor's office made life easier for me as an FTM navigating breastfeeding.

Ashoes123 · August 2017

Lots of good advice here already. I also want to stress what @wal2017 says about asking them questions to make sure your parenting philosophy is in sync with theirs. How do they feel about: breastfeeding/bottle feeding, Getting babies/toddlers to sleep through the night, etc. I love our pediatrician because I respect his parenting philosophy and I can sort of count on him for parenting advice. When my daughter went through a hitting phase and when my daughter had sleeping problems he gave great advice.

Also important to find out what happens if your baby gets very sick during non office hours.

ChristmasCookie · August 2017

You people are amazing. This is such great advice. I'm glad I've still got some time though... it's more overwhelming than I thought it would be!

KLHauck12 · August 2017

Honestly I wouldn't stress too much about it now. Focus on whether insurance is accepted, location, services at the clinic, office hours, etc. While it is good to have an idea if the doctor is in line with your parenting beliefs, it's hard to be sure of all that ahead of time. Because you yourself might change how you feel on things once you are actually experiencing them. And because it is hard to get a real feel for how you click with a doctor until you have had a few experiences with them. And until you have had experiences being concerned or worried and see how they respond to you.
I picked out my top choice and then when I was getting ready to leave the hospital, I called and scheduled our first appointment (my daughter spent 3 days in the NICU so we had to see the doctor the day after going home). I didn't do a meet and greet. I figured we'd just try it out and switch if we needed to!

the_other_mother · August 2017

I'm just going to add a little food for thought suggestion. I felt overwhelmed with everything involved in preparing for baby. It seems like so much falls on us as the person carrying the baby and going through childbirth. Since finding a pediatrician was something DH was able to do, we agreed that would be something that he could research and schedule to take something off of my plate and get him involved in the process.

Starynightsky24 · August 2017

Also, see if they separate the sick. It always irks me when they have the same kids that are healthy and getting well visits with the sick kids.

Our pediatrician has a whole separate adjacent building for newborns only. I love that too

Megzb510 · August 2017

I selected a pediatrician based on a friends recommendation and literally never had the time to visit the office beforehand. I put their name on the intake paperwork and they magically showed up at the hospital so obviously they got told somehow. My pediatrician visited my son multiple times in the hospital. He kept us updated on his audio test results (my son failed the first time and passed the second). It was super soothing to have him check in and update us that DS was a healthy little guy.

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