One of the toughest parts of moving to a new city is building up your contact list again. Your Mississauga dentist will have to be replaced by a Tempe one, you'll need a new doctor, a new hair dresser, a new handyman, and more. With the shortage of doctors across North America, it can be difficult to find a doctor who will take you on as new patient. If you require treatment, you may have to rely on medical referrals from other doctors to get your foot in the door.
So what is a medical referral? Well, remember when you desperately needed acne treatment in Edmonton and the remedies your family doctor tried just weren't cutting it? He sent you to a dermatologist, a doctor specializing in skin conditions. He gave you a medical referral, because specialist doctors do not see just any patient who phones up. They must be referred by another doctor who knows what he or she is talking about, because a specialist's time is valuable.
In Canada, it's not just nose jobs in Toronto that you need referrals for. You also needed a referral for your child to see a pediatrician, or a child specialty doctor. This is not the case in the United States. Once you move to Tempe, your child's regular doctor will be a pediatrician, as this branch of medicine is not a specialty like it is in Canada. Only once the child is fully developed will he or she start seeing a general physician like you and your spouse.
In Canada it didn't much matter which Edmonton laser clinic your doctor referred you to because everyone in Canada is covered by the same government health insurance. In the United States, there are a variety of different private providers, so which hospitals you can and cannot go to is determined by which institutions your provider has deals with. As a result, you may not be able to get a referral to the specialist clinic you want to go to unless you're willing to pay out of pocket.
You can use medical referrals to secure yourself a regular doctor once you move. You can ask your Vaughan dentist and doctor to refer you if they know someone in Tempe. Or you can visit a free clinic and try to get a referral from them if they know a doctor who is taking new patients. You can also ask your insurance company for a list of doctors taking new patients who appear on their roster.
|