10 Critical Items You Must Be Aware Of Before Choosing Your Eye Surgeon Or Eye Doctor
10 Critical Items You Must Be Aware Of Before Choosing Your Eye Surgeon Or Eye Doctor
A lot of individuals consider their vision to be their most significant sense. Yet, every year thousands of people have surgery on their eyes without having done any research on their eye surgeon. Who performs your eye surgery is one of the most consequential decisions you will make.
It doesn’t take a long time to choose your cataract surgeon if you know how. The following list of 10 Essential Things Everyone Must Know Prior to Selecting a Eye Doctor will tell you how. With this list you can decide on an outstanding eye surgeon in less time than many people commit to picking out their next auto.
1. Do not confine your choices to simply those docs in your insurance network. Despite what your insurance company’s marketing brochures may indicate, the main factor in deciding who is “in-network” is who is inclined to sign that insurance contract. Currently there is no corroborated method of ranking eye doctors and any insurance company that intimates their network of eye surgeons is the most qualified is disingenuous at best.
2. Ask those you trust Good sources of information include your internist, optometrist, and acquaintances who have had cataract surgery. Even better sources include the operating room nurses and employees at your local surgery center. They are often in the OR with the and see which surgeon has the fewest complications. Nurses are frequently very helpful individuals and will often be happy to respond to your question. The difficulty will be getting past the hospital’s automated phone maze and getting access to a live OR nurse.
3. Research your eye surgeon’s education Where did your eye surgeon train? You may not know which residency programs are the most respected, but it is easy enough to ascertain their ratings once you know where your eye surgeon trained. Two objective resources are U.S. News & World Report’s Annual rating of Medical Schoolsand Eye Hospitals
Don’t get too caught up on the rating order – if your cataract surgeon trained at a top 20 program she acquir
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ed top-notch education.
4. Research your cataract surgeon’s State Licensure Your cataract surgeon must be licensed to practice medicine in her state. In addition to confirming licensure, many state license websites will also tell you if there is any history of corrective or legal action against your eye surgeon. In California you can look up this information online at http://www.medbd.ca.gov/lookup.html
5. Confirm that your Physician is Board Certified Board certification is a type of “seal of approval” for all physicians. In order to receive certification a cataract surgeon must successfully pass both a written and oral examination. In addition, younger cataract surgeons must recertify every decade – a process that can take up to three years to complete. You can confirm that your ophthalmologist is board certified by checking the website: http://www.abop.org or http://www.abms.org
6. Visit your surgeon’s Medical Practice Site Assuming the above-mentioned background check is favorable you can sometimes get useful information from your ophthalmologist’s web site. Although numerous websites do supply educational materials, keep in mind that the web site’s central goal is to market the medical practice. You won’t discover anything negative about your surgeon there, but it can affirm the constructive data you have already acquired and afford you some insight into the surgeon’s background and practice philosophy.
7. See what others have experienced. Are testimonials available online (surgeon ranking internet sites or medical practice website)? Are testimonials available in your cataract surgeon’s exam room for your viewing? Will your eye doctor supply you the phone number of an individual who had surgery that you can talk to?
Keep in mind that Federal privacy laws set the amount of information your cataract surgeon may be able to supply you involving other patients who have had cataract surgery. Even So, it shouldn’t be too troubling for your eye surgeon to come up with a living person who would volunteer to talk about the eye surgery experience with you.
8. Discover how many surgeries your catarct surgeon has performed. There is a reason they call it the “practice of medicine.” Just like a sports pro, a physician’s abilities improve with practice and experience. Every surgery differs in its “threshold” number (the number of surgeries necessary for the typical surgeon to become proficient). For cataract surgery I think this number is probably around five hundred.
If you are uncomfortable inquiring straightaway then bring somebody with you to the appointment to ask for you. This is a very important question. These are your eyes. You only have two. Get over your hesitancy. Just ask.
9. Meet the Eye Surgeon. The above inquiry can give you an idea if your cataract surgeon is qualified to perform your cataract surgery. Still, you can’t know if this is the physician you want working on your eyes until you see with him or her. In addition to verifying his or her certification, you need to be comfortable with this person.
Trust is a serious consideration that cannot be sufficiently developed without encountering your physician person-to-person.
10. Finally, get a second impression. Most people wouldn’t buy a car without test driving it and at least one other car. Why would you restrict your choice of physician because “he’s on my insurance” before getting a sense of how comfortable you are with the selection your insurance has made for you? This is a very big decision.
Unless you are altogether comfortable with your eye surgeon, get a second opinion. The most experienced cataract surgeons do not mind that you have or are going to get a second opinion. In Point Of Fact, one quick test of your ophthalmologist’s comfort with his or her own ability is to let him know that you would like a second opinion. If the physician becomes defensive about this then you know the second opinion was a good
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idea, after all.
In summary, there are many things you can easily do to confirm that you have made a good decision about who will perform your surgery. Weighing the importance of your eyes, you owe it to yourself to complete this research before having cataract surgery.
By: D. Richardson
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David D. Richardson, M.D. is Medical Director of the San Gabriel Valley Eye Associates, Inc. He received his doctorate in medicine from Harvard Medical School, is Board Certified, is licensed in California, and has performed over 2,000 eye surgeries. He is taking new patients (even those without cataracts), and is always willing to offer a second opinion for those who would like the peace-of-mind that such a consultation would provide and it’s free.
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