Employer Frequently Asked Questions
Best Doctors complements your existing health benefits and helps your employees take control of their healthcare. By ensuring that your employees have the right diagnosis, the right treatment, and the right care, Best Doctors improves healthcare quality—with a positive impact on employee lives. . . and your bottom line.
Best Doctors offers a decision support service that provides an expert medical consultation when employees and their dependents are faced with a significant medical decision. The service uses physicians who are renowned experts to help members review their diagnosis and better understand their treatment options. The whole process takes place over the phone, so members can call in the privacy of their own home.
With Best Doctors, employees have a trusted resource to help them make informed medical decisions and achieve peace of mind. When they call us, our member services team listens to their concerns and leads them to the right resource whether that means connecting them with the right specialist for their condition, providing them with an expert medical consultation, or referring them to another resource your company offers.
The difference between the Best Doctors expert medical consultation and a second opinion are:
- Best Doctors is a comprehensive, independent, "fresh look" at all of the information in a case. Second opinions are a re-review of the conclusions of the first doctor.
- Best Doctors has a team of physicians reviewing the records of each case, summarizing the issues presented, and selects one or more experts to review the case. On average, 3-5 physicians touch every case. A second opinion involves the review of the case by a single practitioner.
- Best Doctors gathers all medical records for our members. Second opinions require the patient to gather all relevant medical information.
- Best Doctors selects from renowned experts across the country for our consultation service, and the opinions provided are independent and unbiased. Second opinions can be subject to regional bias and social pressures among doctors. Patients do not always trust that the opinion is truly objective and independent.
- Best Doctors provides our service over the phone. Second opinions require time out of work for a face to face appointment.
Best Doctors is a global company, with a large and rapidly growing U.S. program. Our U.S. services are delivered by physicians throughout the United States. We also provide our services in over 30 countries with physicians around the globe.
In addition to our InterConsultation service, we connect members with the right expert specialist for their condition when they need to be seen by a doctor from Best Doctors proprietary database of 46,000 expert physicians. This “stops the churn” of employees needing to see multiple specialists to get the healthcare they need. Our services integrate with your other benefits to drive utilization. Best Doctors offers a comprehensive employee engagement program that encourages employees to play an active role in their healthcare.
Best Doctors also offers global insurance benefit programs for employees outside of the United States. These programs are typically less expensive and more comprehensive than competing offerings.
As an employer, you recognize how complex and fragmented the medical system is with wide variation in quality of care. By providing the Best Doctors service, you can help employees, at the individual level, make more informed decisions about their healthcare and help them navigate the system to get the right care. It is intended to supplement the work of treating physicians, not replace it, and most doctors find that collaboration with other experts can only help in complex situations.
Typically, Best Doctors provides services to individuals who have recently received a diagnosis of a medical condition for which they are unsure of or face a difficult medical decision regarding treatment. Best Doctors will review the diagnosis and help the individual understand treatment options.
Best Doctors physicians are best-in-their-field medical specialists selected by their clinical peers. As of 2009, Best Doctors proprietary database includes the top 5 percent of physicians across the United States covering more than 400 specialties and subspecialties of medicine. Best Doctors identifies the expert(s) best qualified to work on each case.
Best Doctors is highly collaborative with treating physicians. Our experience has been that physicians react positively to the Best Doctors service. Our experts are nationally recognized as top in their field, and treating physicians appreciate the insight offered by these well-respected peers.
Best Doctors adheres to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy requirements. Further information is
available here.