Find a Medical Professional

About the NursingHomeDatabase.com Doctor Database

The NursingHomeDatabase doctor database is a great resource for finding information on medical professionals. The database is primarily based on information provided by The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS). The database includes more than 2 million records covering more than 1.2 million medical professionals, more than 80 specialties, and nearly 80,000 doctors groups. The data is updated monthly, so you can be sure you're getting the most up-to-date information possible. Customized spreadsheets or API's are also available to make finding the right information even easier.

If you're looking for a doctor, the NursingHomeDatabase doctor search form is a great place to start. You can search for providers in multiple ways, including by full or partial name, city, state, zip code, and/or by more than 80 medical specialties. The database includes doctors, nurse practitioners, and clinicians.

You can also use the NursingHomeDatabase to find doctors near you, compare doctors to one another, and get more information about specific providers. Whether you're looking for a primary care physician or a specialist, the NursingHomeDatabase database of doctors can help you find the right provider for your needs.

If you're looking for detailed information on a particular doctor, you can find it on various websites that provide ratings and reviews. The Merit-Based Incentive Payment System ("MIPS"), patient experiences, and multiple measures and activities are all important factors to consider when choosing a doctor. You can also view detailed reports showing which doctors group the medical professional is associated with, any hospital affiliations, and other similar medical professionals in the same geographic area. This information can be extremely helpful in making an informed decision about your healthcare.

How to Choose the Right Doctor, Doctor Ratings and Surveys

Find the right doctor is not easy; there are numerous objective and subjective criteria that you need to consider and what is right for one person may not be right for another. Also, whatever health insurance you have is going to drive how and who you are able to see. We've tried to pull together as much information as we can find to help you with your search. Here are a few ideas:

• Know what you need. Obviously the first issue is determining what type of malady you are seeking help with. You will usually want to start with someone in "Family Practice" or "General Practice" who can help you diagnose any issues and guide you to a specific specialty. More often than not, your insurance is going to require that you start with you Primary Care Provider ("PCP") before seeking a specialist.
• Nurse Practitioners can be your best ally. More and more often you are going to find that your first and most frequent connection with the medical establishment is not with a doctor or speciality but with a qualified nurse practitioner. Don't take offense. These are people who are very qualified and more importantly they often have more time to spend with you. Let them get to know you and become your advocate.
• Consider geography. People will often discount how important it is to find medical professionals that are nearby. You are much more likely to go to someone if they are easy to get to rather than far away.
• Know yourself. Most medical professionals are now part of groups. These may be specialty groups that focus in one area or multi-speciality groups that house many different disciplines. The largest groups now involve thousands of medical professionals. Are you comfortable seeing someone different with every visit if you can go to just one place? Or do you prefer to work with doctors in smaller groups that do not feel so industrial? Make sure you know how you feel about these subjective criteria and then check our detailed reports on doctors groups to see whether they are in a large or small group.

Choosing a Doctor or Choosing a Doctor Group?

The days of a sole practitioner hanging out their shingle someone and working alone are over. Nearly every new medical professional exiting medical school is joining a doctors group. There are a variety of reasons for this. For the medical professional choosing to join a doctors group means reducing the financial risk of starting out and getting greater flexibility by not having to be available 24/7/365. Another factor that is not discussed much is the crushing burden of bureaucracy that is the current state of affairs for healthcare in the United States. Pooling resources in a group also means the group can hire the specialists that it needs to file for reimbursement and keep track of health insurance receivables. (On a personal note, it seems very clear that office management is not something that is taught in medical school. This is a special skill that doctors just don't seem to be equipped for and their offices often are a mess as a result. Unfortunately the individual practitioner is often blind to this glaring problem. So to that extent doctors groups with competent office managers are truly an improvement.)

What Does Medicare Cover?

This is such a tricky question, "what does Medicare cover?" I wish there was an easy answer. Why is it that when we are at our most vulnerable, we are faced with the most difficult and byzantine process ever invented? The biggest reason for the confusion is that Medicare coverage is something that has been expanded over many decades without it ever being comprehensively re-worked. There is Part A, Part B, and Part D. Part C became "Medicare Advantage". Each part covers different categories of healthcare. Then Medicare Advantage allows private insurers to create even more categories of coverage meaning that at the end of the day the only way to answer "What does Medicare cover?" is to ask your insurer.

One thing we have learned is, SIGN UP FOR MEDICARE ADVANTAGE. Your coverage, your access to medical professionals, your overall health is much better under a Medicare Advantage plan than without it.