Should I find a new Doctor?

IMHO, trusting your doctor is vitally important.  You need to be willing and able to share embarassing personal details, be touched in intimate places, and know that you're getting good advice and recommendations on life-critical things.  If there's any question about those things then you need to find another doctor.

In this case it sounds like the lack of trust doesn't really bear directly on those topics, erring on the side of being too conservative.  IME it's very unusual to find a medical professional who will ever say NOT to go to the ER, and if it's true that rabies is only treated there (I have no idea), then it's quite possible that he and his office were not aware that the general practice is not to give vaccination for bites from rodents.

In reply to ProDarwin :

3 days of research and phone calls before I found a locally owned outfit where I could call the offices and a human would answer the phone and the Dr spent more time talking to me instead of entering billing codes on his laptop.

Corporate medicine is not people oriented. It may be worse than corporate banking. 

Edit to say, the urgent care I stumbled across trying to find someone to stitch up a son after he scoped himself with a new rifle. The ER was going to be $1800, the urgent care was $275. 

I don't expect that what I'm gonna recommend will help in any way for your "what should I do about this mouse bite" scenario.   But this will help with medical transparency.  

You are in Columbus, OH and you also have another active GRM thread about getting in shape/exercise/lifting, so...  

Make an appointment with this Dr. in Pickerington. Dr Eric Serrano.  My wife an I were seeing him years back and we were driving 2+ hours just to see him.  He is full on doctor but positions himself as a nutrition specialist as well as "Sports Medicine" for nutrition, mobility, etc.  It will take you 6 months or more to get your first appt.  When that appt does happen, his initial consult will be a 45 minute long appt and he will genuinely take interest in you, your body and your health.  He will pull blood for a lot of baseline heath checks.  The blood is pulled right in his office, not an additional visit to a "lab."  He is so busy, he does not accept insurance but rather you pay him direct.  I seem to remember an appointment is $200.  

You can research him yourself.  Here is one video I found of him from this year.  Keep in mind that this guy is 60+ and he is build like a brick E36 M3 house.  Hes a staunchly religious man and highly dedicate to his family/children.  His wife is also a Dr in the practice.   He's also a fanatic about superheros and his offices are mostly decorated in a superhero vibe, which is fun.  Here is a female centered video about Hormone/Estrogen.  

He is not like the typical doctor.  He is not a slave to a hospital chain or other big Physicians Group like we have all experienced (with poor results.)  I gave a name to our previous family doctor (or what I call my wife's doctor.)  I called him, "the doctor who sent you to the doctor".  I had a rash on my chest.  After waiting for an appt with that doctor and finally getting in the end result was that I should make an appt with a dermatologist.  In hind sight, a dermatologist that is a part of the same Physicians Group.  After waiting for that appt and finally getting, the doctor walked in and said, "Oh, that's a fungal rash...very common."  Take these pills for 3 days and it will all clear up (and it did.)  It really felt like a money grab of how many appointment can we collectively turn this one visit into.  The dermatologist also scheduled a follow up appt which seemed like more money grab.  I canceled that appt when the meds did what he said they would.  

Try this guy above.  He's not that kind of doctor.  He did recommend to me some supplements but he then just pointed me to Amazon to buy those.  He was not dedicated to a brand but rather the formula/ingredients.  I just add that to show that he was not pushing me to a product he might make money off/endorse. 

So here's another one along those lines. If you call your doctor's office asking for an appointment and they say they won't be able to get you in until x amount of time later, how long of an x is acceptable to you?

I fired one in the past when I had a horrible respiratory infection and they said they couldn't get me in for 6 months. 

Just pretty much fired another because it was going to be 4 months until I could see him regarding a physical and some other concerns. 

What do you guys view as reasonable these days?  Or is it really so berked that for anything needing decent turnaround you simply have to go to urgent care or teledoc?

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

IMHO, trusting your doctor is vitally important.  You need to be willing and able to share embarassing personal details, be touched in intimate places, and know that you're getting good advice and recommendations on life-critical things.  If there's any question about those things then you need to find another doctor.

In this case it sounds like the lack of trust doesn't really bear directly on those topics, erring on the side of being too conservative.  IME it's very unusual to find a medical professional who will ever say NOT to go to the ER, and if it's true that rabies is only treated there (I have no idea), then it's quite possible that he and his office were not aware that the general practice is not to give vaccination for bites from rodents.

Thank you. This is my dilemma that I was doing a poor job of putting into words.

I had a good rapport and trusted my previous Dr. If I messaged through the online portal, I would usually get a response from her (sometimes a nurse practitioner, but I knew who was messaging me). I was able to raise concerns that were similarly, "This probably is not serious, but there is enough question that I want an expert opinion." Including a situation of tingling in my fingertips. I got a measured response that was not panicked. They got me into the office a couple days later where I think I saw an NP, and we determined it was acute carpal tunnel (mostly from bad form doing bench press) and not a heart issue.

I'm with the same insurance company, healthcare system, and office. My previous Dr. just moved and I have this guy now. I got one physical a year ago, and this was the only other interaction I've had.

I don't feel like I am able to trust this guy and get the level of care I got from my previous Dr. I don't know how much of that is him being the wrong fit for me, or strain on the system from everything that's been happening the past couple years.

If it's him, finding another Dr. in the same office would fix my issues. If it's the office, the company, or systemic problems on the whole... that's a tougher fix.

John Welsh said:

Try this guy above.  He's not that kind of doctor. 

I'll look that guy up. He sounds like the kind of Dr. I'd like to see. I don't care about paying $200 cash to actually receive real care. That's better value than $30 copay to get boxes checked. I pay that kind of money for annual service on my car, and I value my own health more.

Apexcarver said:

What do you guys view as reasonable these days?  Or is it really so berked that for anything needing decent turnaround you simply have to go to urgent care or teledoc?

It is that berked right now, I'm on a first name basis with all the urgent care doctors with 2 kids in daycare under 3 years old. Last year it took me 4 months of schedule changes to get an annual physical at my primary care doctor. It's amazing how the doctors don't like it and the patients don't like it but neither the doctors or patients are loud enough to make a real change to the current system. 

In reply to Beer Baron :

Like any reviews, you'll see more bad than good.  His top Google reviews are accurate to my experience.  I came across this article of someone who seems to be from Ireland, who interned under him.  When we saw him he often had interns in the room.  The article seems to be a good summary of our experiences too.  Oh, yeah.  I forgot about the incredibly well mannered dogs that he keeps with him in the office.  Very cool dogs!  

You got treated appropriately for your situation.  For any medical provider to not tell you to get a rabies shot after you got bitten by some wild animal would potentially be negligence/malpractice.  ER's are really expensive, that's the nature of them because only 30% of the people who walk through their doors actually pay them.  That sucks, but that's the same everytime you walk through their door.

Almost every primary care Doc out there is part of some larger group, either corporate, part of a hospital chain, or concierge only, where you pay them $3000/year to be part of the practice.  Otherwise they simply can't stay in business. You need to truly assess what you're upset about here and if another Doc is going to make you happy.  It seems like you're more upset that you were treated carefully than anything else, which is what any Doc worth their salt is going to do.

I left my primary care doc a few years back when he misdiagnosed my Hashimoto's Disease and told me I was feeling like crap exercising because I'd turned 50.  To me, that was more than reason enough to leave him.  However finding another primary care Doc and getting into their practice is extremely difficult.  I'm lucky in that one of my neighbors is a primary care Doc and agreed to let me into his practice, which doesn't accept new patients.

I'm kind of torn right now with my healthcare system.  I started seeing a doctor at a very small conglomerate called Pinnacle Health group.  They had about 10 offices in town.  Great care, fabulous doctors.  Then UPMC came in and bought a crapload of hospitals, all of Pinnacle, and several other medical facilities.  My first thought was (having previously lived in PIttsburgh) that this was great.  UPMC is one of the best in the country.

The upside is that now I have a buttload of options all under one roof; gastro, osteo, ortho, surgery, ER, PCP, chiro, neuro, psychiatric, the works.  The downside is that it's not being managed well and doctors are jumping ship FAST.  My previous PCP ditched because of pay cuts and because of the non-compete she had to put in one year at an urgent care before she could do family practice again.  My next PCP (an LNP) quit to take a nurse position an hour away which suggests that it was profitable for her to drive 70 miles to work as a nurse than it was to drive 5 miles as a practitioner.

I finally have a good PCP.  Like really good.  For now, the integrated nature of it all is a bonus.  When I went for my colonoscopy, it wasn't like I had to go to a gastro doc in another practice, then go to yet another endoscopy place, it was all just different wings of the same UPMC Pinnacle complex.  I didn't have to search for providers that take my insurance, I didn't have to fill out new paperwork, I just went.  So, right now, it's a good situation.  I have a feeling if I lose my PCP, it will be anyone's guess.