Looking for endocrinologist in SF Bay Area

[chuckb]

I've just moved to the US, to San Francisco, and am looking for a good endocrinologist.

I'm also trying to navigate the minefield of options in terms of US private health cover, and want to know what sort of plan I should be looking at for covering the insulins (minimising my co-pay, although they all seem to be similar for these drugs), and covering expendables like strips and the likes.

I have the choice of a HMO or PPO and a variety of the major networks.

Can anyone give me some advice/information in this area?

Thanks!

[Lilly164]

I'm unable to help with San Francisco. In Sacramento, there is Patricia Ostrander. In Santa Rosa, there is David Price or something Barbour. They share an office.
In my opinion, Blue Cross/Blue Shield suck. Health Net is OK. Check out Keiser Permanente. Ask about their care policies for insulin dependent diabetics. I don't know any of the doctors at Keiser.
Hope this is some help.
Elizabeth

[Keezheekoni]

Depending on where you are in the bay area, Kaiser is great. :) If you are in Santa Clara, that's Kaiser's teaching hospital so they tend to stick you with a resident who you'll never see again (hence not have a relationship with...)

My parents are in Fremont, I can ask my dad who his endo is if you end up going with Kaiser. The nice thing about Kaiser is that you will never get a bill from them. You make your copay to see a doctor, you make a copay for your prescriptions and you might make a copay for emergency room treatment, but it's all reasonable. After you make your copay, you are covered at 100%.

If you want the flexibility of going to any doctor you want, not just a Kaiser doctor, then you'll want to go the PPO route. With a PPO, you not only pay your copays for the above things, but you are usually only covered at 80% for services. So, you end up getting bills from doctors and hospitals and if you need surgery, you have to make sure that your anesthesiologist and anyone else in the surgery room are "preferred providers" with your PPO. If they aren't, then you'll get bills from them for more than the 20% that you have to pay... Most non-preferred providers are only covered by PPO insurance at 50%.

I live in WA now, and don't have Kaiser here. If we had that choice, that's the way we'd go...of course, I was born and raised a Kaiser member, so I know how to get through their system really easily if I want to be seen quickly. :) Sometimes they do make you wait for appointment (non-urgent) for weeks...

Good luck! Oh, and welcome to the board! Glad to have you here. :)