How will you choose between two doctors for the same surgery?
The procedure is called Fistulotomy and/or Fistulectomy. The kind of procedure is not necessarily the issue here. Cost is. Doctor A’s fee along with the surgery facility costs amount to $2500 while Doctor B’s fee plus a different facility’s cost totals $1400.
How would you go about deciding which doctor to perform the surgery. Does the more expensive option makes it the better one or choosing the much cheaper one makes for a quite practical wise choice? What steps would you take to ensure getting the safest and most effective treatment?
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8 Answers
Higher price doesn’t always mean better. If there is no rush for the surgery, I would definitely do some background checking and getting some reviews from other patients. There are ways to find out about a doctor’s history and performance.
I’d personally research the two doctors and their history with this particular surgery. I’d also research the two facilities to see if one has better equipment than the other in case something goes wrong. I’d try to ask around and see if I could get personal experiences from people that have had the surgeries performed by these doctors.
How many times has each performed the surgery? I want the one with more experience. How many negative outcomes have there been? I want the one with the least negative outcomes. I want to talk to my primary care physician and see who he or she recommends. I want to research them on the internet. That will help me figure it out.
You can check the hospital’s success rate with that particular surgical procedure. That would be the determining factor for me.
And when you’re doing your research, if there are two hospitals involved, see which one has more health code violations. Sometimes it’s not the doctor, it’s the hospital staff you need to be concerned about.
Look at complication rate.
I’d research both Dr.‘s credentials, reported/public complaints, standing with Better Business Bureau, number of surgeries performed and reported success rates. I’d have to weigh the locales the Dr.s perform the surgeries out of, is one a hospital the other a private clinic? Doctors pay rents too.
We had a similar situation with eye surgery. We decided to ask our family doctor which of doctor A and doctor B he would go to, if he had to have eye surgery?
My doctor knew and trusted doctor A. This was good enough for us, so why don’t you do the same?
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