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Use ZocDoc to Find a Doctor in ……

August 22, 2012 | Updated: October 31, 2014 | By Elizabeth | Reply More

ZocDoc helps you find doctors and dentists in U.S. cities.

What happens when – in spite of all your good health habits – you get sick while traveling? How do you find a doctor in San Diego, New York, Boston or another U.S. city?

You can ask your hotel concierge for a recommendation, but have they vetted this person or just gone to the Yellow Pages? Alternatively, you can head to the closest hospital ER, wait forever, and pay a fortune.

I’ve recently discovered another option that gives you the opportunity to choose from a group of thoroughly vetted doctors and dentists and make appointments online.

You can use ZocDoc to find a doctor in 20 cities.

Here’s how it works:

You go to ZocDoc and request a doctor or dentist by specialty, put in your location and the kind of medical insurance you have (if any). You can also tailor your search by gender or languages spoken. Zocdoc then shows the profiles and schedules of nearby professionals. After you have reviewed their qualifications and credentials, appointments can be made online or via the ZocDoc iPhone, Android, or Blackberry app.

Traveling patients pay the same as local residents, and seeing a ZocDoc physician is about 80% less expensive than going to an emergency room.

ZocDoc is a free service and I think it sounds great, but I do want to offer one caveat: based on comments I read on their Facebook page, I’d suggest confirming the appointment by phone. A couple of people said that when they arrived at the doctor’s office they found they didn’t have an appointment. On the other hand, ZocDoc has about 70,000 happy FB friends, and more than 1.3 million patients use ZocDoc each month.

ZocDoc is presently operating (no pun intended) in Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami-Palm Beach, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa Bay, and Washington, DC – and growing fast.

First choice: Stay healthy on the road. Second choice: Let ZocDoc help you find a doc. Last choice: Be glad that you took out trip insurance with MedJetAssist.