A lot of time and effort needs to be spent finding the right patient-physician match. And no where is that more relevant than a diabetic looking for an endocrinologist.
Diabetes blogger Amy Tenderich gives some great tips, most of which I hadn’t thought of.
Of course, it goes without saying that if the match isn’t right, a second or third opinion is always within a patient’s right.
But, how do you know if your endocrinologist is technologically savvy, or progressive in his or her’s treatment? One way would be to find out how often they use insulin pump therapy. Asking local pump and company reps, or simply, as Amy suggests, “[asking] the receptionist what percentage of patients are on insulin pumps, or if the doctor has particular preferences to prescribing insulin pumps to young children or people with type 2 diabetes,” is helpful.
Other tips include finding full-service clinics that use a certified diabetes educator (CDE), which tend to emphasize a team-based approach, and also if you can, an endocrinologist that has diabetes himself.
Good piece with tips I’ll be sharing with my own patients.
Related posts:
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- 5 diabetes posts you may have missed
- What is the best insulin regimen for patients with diabetes?
- Diabetes and kids
- An insulin pump fails to shut off, leading to a hypoglycemic coma
- Primary care: "Just a few hours of instruction on diabetes, while they were in medical school"
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Are you recommending an endocrinologist for all diabetics?
That does not strike me as necessary.
I just inherited some endocrine patients. The local endocrinologist went cash-only.
First of all….I think you better start off by differentiating between type 1 and type 2….Makes a BIG difference. I don’t really think a type 2 diabetic really has a need to know about what the percentage of pump patients the endo has.
Take sometime to think about it …before you type about it…
Most endocrinologists in my area aren’t taking any new diabetic patients. Diabetes has become a primary care disease state. I’d suggest you consider looking for a good family physician who has gone the extra mile to achieve NCQA recognition for quality diabetes care.
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