What you/we are looking for is Health Care Professionals who are ACCOUNTABLE – ACCOUNTABLE for what they do and say. And the best indication that they may be like that is that they are prepared to put things in writing.
At the very least, after every consultation you/we have with them, we should be able to send them something along the lines of, “In my consultation with you today I understood you to say blah blah blah. Have I got that right?” and for them to provide us with a “yes” or “no” answer, or to set us right if necessary.
And to find the Health Care Professionals that are most likely to be like that, the best thing is to send out emails along the lines of, “I have such and such medical problem. Is helping those with this problem within your areas of expertise, and, if not, is there anyone else you can recommend?”
Health Care Professionals who only provide fax numbers for you to communicate with them, you can forget – not one in a hundred will provide a response. And those who only provide email forms are not much more likely to provide responses. And with those who provide ordinary email addresses, 20 to 25%, 30% if you’re lucky, will provide responses – responses which, we have found to provide pretty reliable guidance as to which one or two of them may be the most helpful if we consult them face-to-face.
Trust us, and we speak from a great deal of personal experience, if you do this, it could save you thousands of dollars, the time and trouble involved in countless useless consultations, and perhaps from medical operations and procedures that not only don’t help you in any way, but may do you harm, perhaps lifelong harm about which nothing can be done.