Switching pediatricians in the same office?

[noodleoo]

Has anyone ever switched pedis in the same office?  I love the girls pediatrician but I am done with her always running behind by 45 mins.  I feel like we wait at least 45 mins every time and meanwhile lots of other patients come in to the waiting room after us and get taken back sooner, which makes me think the other drs are better at keeping to their schedule.  I want to call and change DD2's next visit to another dr, but I'm wondering if they will let me or if they'll make me explain why.  I don't want to complain about our current dr because she's so sweet, but I just can't take trying to keep 2 kids happy for so long in the waiting room anymore.  It sucks because I think the reason that my current pedi runs late is that she takes her time with her patients and really listens, which is great, but I think I'd prefer one who runs on time.

[ssmjlm]

We did. We found that the original doctor kept changing milestones from one appointment to the next. So at 12m she said she needed X words by 15m. Then at 15m that number increased (it may have doubled, I can't remember) and wanted to now send her for a speech consult. It was just weird.

So when we made our next appointment we requested to change. The office manager did ask why and I just said that the communication from appointment to appointment was inconsistent and we were unhappy given babies are seen so frequently. They switched us after that.

I think being honest about time management is important. They're babies/kids. Patience for 45 minutes for anyone, even adults, is asking too much.

[mrsGreeko]

We started all our kids with one doctor then I switched them all to his wife who works in the same office because my older girl wanted a female doc. Then I switched my DS back to the husband because he does better for a male doc. So my girls see one doctor in the office and my son sees another. The front office didn’t care or really ask too much about it. There was only one little hiccup when the wife dc retired and I switched to another female doc, but she wasn’t currently taking new patients, but we’d already seen her at that point so they let us switch anyway.

[scm1011]

I switched within my OB office and they also didn't ask. I don't think they really care, ha. If they do ask, I think its perfectly fine to be honest - it was a tough decision because you value the doctor and her attentiveness but the wait times don't work with your schedule.

[namasteak]

Yes - it wasn’t a big deal at all!

[wanderingback]

They won’t care.
Patients switch all the time for a variety of reasons and no one cares or asks.

[mccallister84]

Whenever we schedule a well visit they ask if we have a doctor preference so it doesn’t seem like this would be a big deal in the office we go to. But I am fanatically devoted to the one doctor in our office and I think the staff is starting to realize that.

I honestly can only see them asking if patients are leaving a specific doctor in droves.

[calico]

I haven’t but when I call for appointments they ask if I have a doctor preference. I doubt that it would matter unless the doctor is monitoring a concern or something where past knowledge would be helpful.

[somersault72]

I did when DS was 5. He had a "mysterious" illness (turned out to be gastroparesis) and a different doctor in the practice is saw him throughout the whole process. I appreciated how thorough he was and didn't just blow it off as a GI virus, the dumb dumb ER resident did. The other doctor did nothing wrong (she just happened to not be in the day this whole thing started), and I thought DS might prefer a male doctor once he got older anyway. I have zero regrets about switching, I adore our pedi.

I would absolutely call and ask.

[pandorica]

They always ask us who we want to see for each appointment, so it seems normal at my practice for people to see multiple or to switch doctors without them caring or asking why. We switched after her 4 month appointment because we clicked with a different one than we had randomly started seeing at the beginning.

[Susie]

Our pedi practice has 4 doctors and 1 nurse practitioner, and we see them all, there's just one that we prefer to avoid if possible.  There's nothing weird about circulating, that way when we need a same-day sick app't and get whoever is free, we know them a bit.

My ob/gyn practice also has 4 doctors and several NPs.  I saw them all during pregnancy, and feel just as free to ask for an appointment with whomever for appointments outside of pregnancy.

[gastro]

I’ll see whomever works with our schedule.

Edit: we are in the pedi’s office for routine stuff. My oldest does occasionally get migraines and so when it’s migraine related I do see his pedi specifically because he knows the history and things we’ve already tried to mitigate them.

[momin2013]

At DS's pedi's office, there are several of them who rotate office hours, so you basically get whomever's working on the day of the appointment, unless you specifically request the visit be with a certain one. I think he's actually seen his "own" pedi maybe...2 or 3 times? It doesn't seem to matter to them, and doesn't matter to us either.

[CloudBee]

This is so common! I doubt they will question you or even care.

[sloan]

We rotate through because the one we started with gets booked out early as he splits his time with their other location. There is one that runs way behind because she really takes her time with people so I’ll only book with her if it’s same day sick (I’ll take any opening then!) or if I can book her first thing in the morning so she hasn’t had a chance to get backed up yet.

ETA: like someone else said it’s nice to rotate because then you know whoever you get when a sick appointment comes up, so if they ask for a reason and you don’t want to say it’s the schedule you can always give that as a reason.

[tacom]

Yes, I switched pedis within our practice. No one ever asked for an explanation.

Then once we went in for a walk-in sick appt and they scheduled us with his original pedi, who I don’t trust. I asked if anyone else was covering walk-ins that day; they switched us even for that appt, no questions asked.

[noodleoo]

Thx everyone! I was overthinking it. I called and changed the 18 month appt to another doctor with no issue. Which is even better because I'll stick with my pedi if I can get an early appt with her. I like the option of seeing whoever is open first thing in the morning.

[W.T.Faulkner]

Like everybody else, I did and it was nbd.

DS is actually seeing MY pediatrician so we’ll probably have to switch again when she retires. lol

[boiler717]

I tried but the office refused, so we switched offices.

[shauni27]

see, I wanted to do this and always felt like I couldn't because it would be SO awkward!

We ended up moving so it is a moot point.