1. The first step is to simply google [insert type of doctor] near me or near a selected place. For example, “internal medicine doctor near me,” or “endocrinologist near [town],” etc. (if you don’t know what type you need, you can google your health condition or use ZocDoc to enter your condition to figure out the type). You’ll get a ton of review websites and Google places near you as your search results.

2. Next, go through the Google search results first (scroll down to see what this looks like) to see the most options of all of the providers that are in my radius or selected town. Google is also helpful in that the doctors/facilities can have quite a few reviews from patients that you can read through. 

3. If you find a doctor or clinic near you that you like, click on it and go to their affiliated website. This will show you what providers work there usually with a brief description about them. You may also see what issues they treat, the services they provide, and their research. If they don’t have a website, skip to the next step.

4. Once you find a provider you like, put the name of the doctor into a Google search. Now, you can look through a healthcare review website like Healthgrades or something similar, or any website where you can find a profile of them on to get an idea of their background, hobbies, and what they most frequently treat to figure out if they’re the best fit. The healthcare review websites also have patient reviews, but heed caution in depending on those since there’s usually not many leading to a biased ranking (scroll below to the review websites section to understand this better).

5. If you’re satisfied with the provider’s location from you, their hobbies and relevance to the health issues you want them to understand, and they offer the treatment you need, congrats you’ve found a good option for your doctor! (Make sure you call them to ask if they accept your insurance plan!)

• Can insert your insurance plan and check doctors that accept it

• Sometimes have early online appointment booking options 

• Will find the specialist you’re looking for based on your condition if you’re not sure what you need (sometimes a good way to figure out what type of doctor you need if you’re not sure)

• Review system to rank doctors based on patient experiences

The biggest reason I urge people to make sure they use other search options alongside this is because ZocDoc only shows providers who have signed up for their website. This means you are being shown limited options.

• There could be a provider near you that fits your exact needs, but you may not find them if they haven’t signed up on ZocDoc

Appointments aren’t always guaranteed.

• There’s a chance you make an appointment and you’re called by the facility that the time slot or appointment wasn’t available. Make sure to call the facility to confirm your appointment if you book through ZocDoc.

Review system may be biased in the sense that the doctor may be asking patients whom they have a good experience with to rate them on ZocDoc.

• Make sure to look at any patient reviews for the provider on other sources as well

• Helpful in knowing the background of the physician (sometimes offers their hobbies or interests) 

• Sometimes mentions what the doctors frequently treat (I’ve seen it on Healthgrades before), which is important in telling you if they are the right fit as a doctor for you based on your needs

• Has a rating section that allows patients to tell you their experience

The reviews for providers are usually low in number, skewing the ratings to either really good or pretty bad.

• Some providers may encourage patients to write a review, while some providers don’t. Those that don’t may have a bad rating due to only those patients with a bad experience posting, leaving out any/all of the patients that do like the physician. These bad ratings can also be due to the staff rather than the doctor themself. With the low quantity of overall reviews, these bad reviews will heavily skew the doctor rating down a couple of stars even though there may be more patients that are satisfied. Same is for the vice versa situation leading to really good reviews.

Sometimes, the contact information or address is incorrect. Make sure that it matches up with Google results as well and call to confirm it’s the correct facility.

Google will give you its own search results when you look up a doctor nearby or at a specific place, and then you can click “More Places” to get a list of practices and doctors near you. It will look something like this: 

Gives you a wider list of doctors near you that may not be on other websites

• More common for providers to have their clinics registered in Google compared to ZocDoc. Some providers may also not have a website but will have their business displayed through Google which gives you the most options possible.

The reviews can be more transparent and sometimes there are more reviews available than on other websites

• More transparent since anyone can leave a review on Google without making an account for a website. Additionally, Google sometimes asks you to rate a place after visiting it, encouraging a response that may not be influenced by a provider asking a patient.

• More reviews available can allow for a more justified rating since one bad review or one good review won’t skew the ranking. This may not always be the case for every search result however. 

Contact information is more accurate most times

Restricted by distance

• Won’t show you facilities further away unless you specify the town in your search to open up your radius. For instance, if I’m willing to travel 20 miles for a doctor, Google may not show me all of the options that far. I would have to manually search, “[type of doctor] near [city, town, zipcode]” for more accurate results.

Can’t see background information of physician or treatment frequencies

• Knowing about the physician’s hobbies/background is important to understand if you think they would get along with you and would understand your needs. Knowing what services they offer and what they treat is important to know if they’ll satisfy your health needs.

• Would have to use another website (either a health review website or the provider’s affiliated clinic/hospital website)

• Have access to a background of the physician and sometimes details on their hobbies and life outside of work (helps to know if you’d get along with them, important for PCP choices)

• Have a smaller selection to choose from which can make it easier to decide

• Can find a list of doctors all in one website to go through compared to jumping around search results (bigger hospitals may also have a filter option to prioritize gender, specialty, language, etc.)

• Usually barely or no ratings of patient experiences (or only biased positive ratings)

• Smaller selection to choose from which may limit your options