Transcription:
Choosing A Doctor During Open Enrollment

Deborah Howell (Host): Hello, and welcome to the show. You are listening to Weekly Dose of Wellness brought to you by MemorialCare Health System. I'm Deborah Howell, and today's guest is Dr. David Kim. Dr. Kim is the facility medical director of MemorialCare Medical Group in East Long Beach in the Los Altos neighborhood. Board certified in family medicine, Dr. Kim joined MemorialCare Medical Group in 2005. He received his medical degree from University of Illinois at Chicago and completed his internship and residency at UCLA Northridge Hospital. Dr. Kim has been named a Physician of Excellence by the Orange County Medical Association four years in a row. He was also awarded the Circle of Care Award presented by County of Orange CalOptima in 2012, and we're very glad to have him on the show. Welcome, Dr. Kim.

Dr. David Kim (Guest): Thank you for having me.

Deborah: We have a good topic today. It's choosing a doctor during open enrollment. So much to talk about. Why is it so important for an individual to choose the right doctor from the get-go?

Dr. Kim: I think that the patient-doctor relationship is really critical in order to obtain an effective and comprehensive medical care. The more you can trust your doctor, the more open you can be with your doctor. The clearer your communication is with your doctor, I think the better healthcare that will get you and the healthier it will keep you in the long run. I think it's critical to find a doctor that you feel comfortable with that really is able to establish that kind of relationship with you.

Deborah: How do you really go about that? Do you interview doctors? What would you suggest?

Dr. Kim: There are different ways to go about it. Some patients will come and interview. One of the main ways I find is by word of mouth. If people, your friends or your family, are comfortable or find someone they trust often, you share similar values or similar beliefs in the type of healthcare that you want—your co-worker, your brother, your mother recommend somebody, often that's a great way to go and find someone to see if they're a good fit for you.

Deborah: Absolutely. What are some of the things you should consider when choosing a doctor?

Dr. Kim: I think you should consider proximity, commuting, community. Choose someone that's closer and he's more easily accessible. Someone who is very good with communication—whether they are able to correspond with you electronically, by the telephone, how available are they for appointment, what is their background and philosophy in how they practice medicine, and how they believe certain things should be taken care of. There's a wide spectrum across the board, and you really need to find someone that fits with you in that way.

Deborah: Right. And maybe patient load too. Some doctors have so many patients it's almost impossible to get in.

Dr. Kim: Yes. These days, we really are focusing on this patient-centered medical care where we're trying to take the focus away from the care being around the doctor's needs but more on the patients' needs. That really goes to your question of if a doctor has too many patients, it's very difficult for the patient to be at the center of that care. So I think that's a very relevant topic.

Deborah: Patient-centered care. Wow, what a concept.

Dr. Kim: Overdue.

Deborah: Right, it's true. What's the difference between a doctor associated with an IPA or a medical group?

Dr. Kim: A medical group doctor is someone who is part of the group. It's almost an employee model. So the doctor works for the group. An IPA is a looser association of independent doctors that choose to participate with a group, but they're not affiliated or directly employed by the group itself.

Deborah: So they may have their own practice on the side?

Dr. Kim: It's their own practice, and they just sort of share patients from a health plan, or an insurance company will say, "Are you willing to take care of our patients in this community?" and they'll say yes. But they may have several different of those associations versus the medical group is all those patients will come solely from the medical group.

Deborah: Got it. For those who don't know, what does IPA stand for?

Dr. Kim: Independent Physician Association, I believe.

Deborah: Okay. What are some of the benefits of choosing a doctor that's part of an integrated healthcare system?

Dr. Kim: In this day and age, that's the way to go. I don't think that you should really consider any other way. With healthcare being so complex these days, especially with primary care, you really need someone that can weave together your story. Whether it's [within the] hospital or when you had your last vaccinations to what are you due for the next year, you want an integrated system where a doctor can review the past, the present, and even what's going to come in the future to be able to make decisions about what the best steps for you are going to be. In a non-integrated system, it's very difficult to be able to get that information and integrate it to be able to make a decision. Piecemealing it together is a very difficult thing to do.

Deborah: Maybe we should really define what an integrated and a non-integrated healthcare system is.

Dr. Kim: Memorial is a great example of an integrated system, where the hospital, the outpatient offices are integrated in it, meaning we share the same electronic medical record. We have access to the same specialists. The specialists that are seeing our patients in the outpatient are the same doctors that are seeing them when they're admitted to the hospital so that there's communication. A good example is a patient gets admitted for something into a hospital; my hospitalist, who is my partner, will take care of them in the hospital. I will get updates on them daily as to what's going on; if they're ready to leave the hospital, I'll get a summary of what happened. The hospitalist will be able to make an appointment with me so that that patient has an appointment lined up by the time they leave the hospital, and then they'll be at my office, and then I'll be able to access any records or things that took place in the hospital previously so that there's no gap in the information.

Deborah: The left hand actually knows what the right hand is doing.

Dr. Kim: That is a great way to put it.

Deborah: Maybe that's your first question when you're interviewing doctors. Are you part of an integrated system?

Dr. Kim: I absolutely believe that that's critical. In this day and age, I think that's a critical question to ask.

Deborah: What are some of the other great critical questions we should be asking our doctors?

Dr. Kim: Every doctor has a slightly different philosophy. There is an art to medicine as well as a science to it. It's fully important that as a patient, you find a doctor that is in synch with you. You want to make sure that the science and their knowledge base is solid, that you can trust that they know what they are doing. The art aspect of medicine is really where I think enables us a deep level of trust between a patient and a doctor, whether that's bedside manner or philosophical approaches to medications and treatments. That is so critical to a patient being able to be open and honest and feel safe when they're seeing their doctor.

Deborah: My father was a family physician, and he was the kind of guy that would do house calls at any hour of the day or night. He would accept payment in the form of sweet rolls if you couldn't pay – the real old-fashioned kind of doctoring.

Dr. Kim: Sure.

Deborah: But I do kind of feel that there's a swing back toward the doctors really caring for their patients. Is that something I'm imagining?

Dr. Kim: No. It's a buzzword in the greater medical community that this patient-centered home, this patient-centered care is really, we realize what is going to be integral to establishing a successful medical practice going forward, and that the days of care being centered around a hospital or being centered around a doctor or a doctor's office are really behind us. Everyone is really putting together an effort to really say, "How do we make this care about the patient, the patient's need, the patient's well-being?"

Deborah: Well, good. I'm glad I wasn't imagining that, because I think it's more than a buzzword. I think it's in practice, certainly at a place like MemorialCare, for sure.

Dr. Kim: Sure. I see and feel that every day.

Deborah: Well, that's good news for the patients and good news for the doctors too, because then a happy patient is a happy doctor, correct?

Dr. Kim: Yes, absolutely.

Deborah: What else should we know about MemorialCare Medical Group?

Dr. Kim: We are an integrated system, as we refer to. We actually have a quite large geographic representation all the way from San Clemente all the way up to Long Beach now. We have somewhere around 200 primary care physicians and thousands of contracted specialists. There really isn't any type of medical need that we can't fill or can't provide throughout the network. We've been around for 40 years and have gone through some changes and partnerships to become who we are today, but the core of who we are really is a primary care center, patient-centered place that is here to provide the best care for the patients that can possibly be offered.

Deborah: Right. What extra services does MemorialCare Medical Group offer that maybe some other IPAs or medical groups might not?

Dr. Kim: In the integrated model, all of our offices, you're able to get your blood drawn there, you're able to get x-rays done within the office. In my office in Long Beach, we now have subspecialists that will rotate through. So many doctors are now coming to the patients, where the patients are, much easily accessible. We have an Internet portal called My Chart, where the patient is able to email or send electronic messages to the doctor to make appointments real-time online, to get lab results pushed to them instead of them having to wait in the mail or for a phone call. They can just log in and see their lab results when they're posted onto the website. There are a lot of things that I think really make it convenient for the patient to be able to access their care.

Deborah: Thank you so much, Dr. Kim, for taking the time to talk to us today about choosing a doctor during open enrollment. It's a very important decision to make. So much more, it's been very, very much of a pleasure for me to have you on the show today.

Dr. Kim: It was my privilege. Thank you very much.

Deborah: I'm Deborah Howell. Please join us again next time as we explore another Weekly Dose of Wellness brought to you by MemorialCare Health System. Please have yourself a wonderful and healthy day.