As I explained in Part I, prior to being deployed by the reserves, the Navy tries to give you at least six months to prepare and I needed every minute of the prep time. I already explained how I chose the right caretaker for my daughter, this post is specifically about finding a new pediatrician.
Pediatricians ONLY Please: I was very fortunate to have the perfect pediatrician back in Maryland. His name was Dr. Darden. When I say that he was the best, he truly was. He was really good with Ellie and always remembered her when she came in and she really liked him. Because Ellie is my first and only child, I had never experienced a bad pediatrician.
Ellie has a habit of getting sick when we are not home. As a result, I was forced to take her to an urgent care facility that did not have a pediatrician on site (Christmas Eve pneumonia in New Jersey). During that visit, the doctor prescribed Ellie a medication that is NOT ALLOWED TO BE GIVEN TO CHILDREN UNDER 3, my daughter was 1. Luckily, the pharmacy caught the mistake and called the pediatrician. Lesson learned, don’t allow my daughter to be seen by non-pediatricians.
Only Patients Accepted: I didn’t want Ellie seeing a different doctor and my mom suggested that I stick to Dr. Darden since she would only need 1 wellness visit while I was away. My mom agreed to drive Ellie to that visit, problem solved. NO. The second day in Pennsylvania Ellie got sick. I had already found a back-up pediatric facility in case she got sick while she was in her new state. I called them to set-up an appointment and found out that if your child is not a patient, they cannot be seen. This might be common knowledge to some people, but I had never had “normal” health insurance as an adult. (My healthcare was taken care of my university while I was in college and then Tricare while I had been in the service.)
No one would see my daughter except urgent care and the town had no pediatrician at their urgent care facility. My only option, the ER. Distressed and feeling a bit stupid, I called Ellie’s pediatrician who told me what to do. Needless to say, after that I switched Ellie to a pediatrician in the area.
Finding “The One”: Tricare has many options for dependent health insurance. The first thing that I did was look for the best pediatrician in the area. Even if they were not completely covered by Tricare, I was willing to pay the out-of-pocket costs. The top pediatricians office in the area was no longer accepting patients. Number 2 was a distant second, but they were accepting patients and they were covered by Tricare.
After spending hours on the phone trying to change my primary service provider, Ellie finally had a new doctor in the Tricare system. Tricare allows you to choose a new primary care doctor online, for some reason I decided to do it over the phone, I regret that decision.
When “the One” Sucks: Within a week after I left, Ellie got a really bad double ear infection. My mom called me while she was at the doctors office and asked me what medication Ellie was allergic to. Before you ask, yes, it was in her medical record. The doctor still prescribed Ellie with a medication that was in the same family as the medication that she was allergic to. This mistake was caught by the pharmacy. When the pharmacy called the office to get a new medication prescription, after 3 hours of waiting, the office had not called the pharmacy back. When I learned of this failure, I started making calls and had the pediatrician on the phone within 15 minutes. Needless to say, I wanted to change pediatricians IMMEDIATELY!
Small Town Blues: With small towns come limited options. No other office was rated above a 3 and all of the other offices had horrible reviews. My option now, switch to one of them, or instruct the office not to let my daughter be seen by that horrible doctor. The second option was chosen. Long story short, perfect pediatricians are hard to find.
