doc hunt (or finding dr. right)

as soon as we got out here to seattle, i started looking for a psychiatrist. this has been the journey to date:

we have bcbs insurance, so i looked at the provider list online (which to see it you have to enter your member info - so you would think that it would take you to a list of only the providers you can see in your network), and found a psychiatrist (pdoc from here on out for brevity's sake). so i went to see Dr. N, and she's been pretty good. then i found out that even though i have bcbs for coverage, behavioral (i.e. mental health) goes through cigna, so Dr. N was considered out of network. as it is, the in network charge is $25, but out of network is 40% and with pdocs, that gets rather steep (so i've spent a few hundred bucks seeing her for the last few months).

so i looked at cigna's list, and called a few doctors nearby. no one called back.

i looked at the list again, and called another one and since he works at a hospital, i was able to get through to a person instead of a machine. so i set up an appt with Dr. H and saw him. as far as meds, he seemed to know what he was doing (of course i base my opinion on the fact that he made the adjustments i would've made). but on a personal level, it wasn't going to work. plus, at most i'd see him once a month for 15 min, and anyone familiar with my history will know that just won't cut it (i have pretty complicated responses to meds, and a complicated set of diagnoses, and a very long history with very bad pdocs).

so now, i'm taking the meds Dr. H gave me instead of the ones Dr. N did, but don't want to go back to him. i might go back to her if i can't find someone else before next month.

i've come to the conclusion that with my diagnoses and complicated history, i'd be better off with a specialist (in either mood disorders or women's health). so i've spent days researching all the pdocs in seattle. seriously, just about all of them.

no one on my insurance list specializes in anything. well, one guy might, but i'm not too sure about that.

i have a list of a dozen or so names that are specialists, but out of network.

next week i plan to start calling every one of them to see who's taking new patients, whether they've dealt with someone with my sort of history, and what their fees are to see if they are affordable. (oh, and these days i'm absolutely phobic when it comes to using the phone, so this isn't really looking like fun to me.)

since right now i'm taking meds that seem to be making things worse rather than better, i'm hoping i can find someone very quickly. my current side-effects are driving me crazy, and the meds i'm on are too dangerous to stop without medical oversight, so i need someone soon.