The Internet age has allowed for easy-to-perform background searches on surgeons of all types. The glamorous world of plastic surgery attracts plenty of quacks and hacks trying to cash in on a growing trend. Watch out for self-styled experts who are not nearly as good as they claim. If you know where to look, you can easily find out whether your prospective surgeon has a flawed past or a record of negligence or malpractice.
Instructions
1. Type "PACER" in the search line of any Internet search engine, which will direct you to the PACER Service System. Once you find that site, you can register for a password, which you will receive by mail once you fill out the form. This may take a few weeks, but it's worth the wait.
PACER, an electronic court records system that contains complete civil, criminal and bankruptcy case dockets, allows you to search the entire civil and criminal database for any skeletons in your surgeon's closet. Unless he practices in a state that does not have these records in the system, you can find out when, how often and by whom the doctor has been sued with the click of a mouse and ta few keystrokes. If the system doesn't list your state's records, it still might catch an old case in another state from which the surgeon had to move away to start over.
2. Look for sites that post reviews of surgeons and other doctors. Doctor review sites such as Doctorscorecard.com have become increasingly popular. Scour these sites for any reviews of your physician---don't just check one or two. Doctors know that bad reviews can slow down their practice considerably, and they may even ask satisfied patients to write reviews to offset any bad ones that might circulate. Look careully at the advertising on the review site to make sure the site does not favor doctors over patients. Some of these sites support the industry over the customer, which makes it important to go to multiple review sites.
3. Search these and other sites for anything about your particular doctor. Some cosmetic-surgery-specific review sites include grademyplasticsurgeon.com, plasticsurgeonreviews.com and plasticsurgeryreviews.com. Type the doctor's name into the search engines as well to find out any more obscure complaints out there on private blogs or other sites. Start on dogpile.com, which digs through multiple search engines for results. If anything appears online about your doctor, negative or positive, you'll find it.
4. Make some phone calls. Call your state medical board. Call the Better Business Bureau. You might not find a bad review on a doctor checking site, but you could find a complaint logged somewhere about the doctor's business acumen. Investigate from all angles to ensure you've made the right choice.
Tags: review sites, about your, civil criminal, other sites, records system, search engines, these sites
