HOW TO FIND A DOCTOR / HOW TO FIND INFORMATION ABOUT A DOCTOR - CONNECTICUT

All physicians and health care providers must be licensed in order to practice medicine in Connecticut. Physicians who practice a particular specialty must be certified by a specialty board; they are not licensed by the state of Connecticut to practice a specific specialty or subspecialty.

HOW TO FIND A DOCTOR OR A SPECIALIST IN CONNECTICUT

• The Connecticut Dept. of Public Health licenses all doctors and health care practitioners practicing medicine in Connecticut. To find a licensed health care provider in Connecticut, go to the DPH website, https://www.elicense.ct.gov/, and click on Licensing & Certification, then click on Health Care Practitioners.
• Doctor referral services at hospitals can refer to doctors and specialists in their network.
• County medical associations have listings of physicians.
• Medline Plus (a service of the National Library of Medicine and the National Institute of Health) offers online physician directories (see: www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/directories.html).

HOW TO FIND A DOCTOR WHO ACCEPTS MEDICARE

• The Medicare website has a directory of doctors and other healthcare professionals at the website http://www.medicare.gov (Click on Facilities and Doctors from the home page). You can specify providers who accept the Medicare approved amount as payment in full for your search. Referrals to local doctors who accept Medicare can also be obtained by calling the Medicare Hotline (1-800-MEDICARE).

HOW TO FIND A DOCTOR WHO ACCEPTS MEDICAID

• Certain Medicaid programs – TFA, HUSKY, Healthy Start – are managed by HMOs. People receiving health insurance from those programs must use a doctor in their HMO’s network, and should call their HMO for a referral.
• Other Medicaid programs – State Supplement for the Aged, Blind and Disabled, Refugee Medical Assistance, people on a spenddown, and people with Medicaid for the Employed Disabled – have “fee for service” Medicaid and they can go to any doctor, provided the doctor accepts Medicaid for payment. To help find fee-for-service doctors that accept Medicaid, call the Provider Relations unit at the Dept. of Social Services (DSS), or search for doctors who are active in the DSS system by following a link (Provider Search) on the website of the Connecticut Medical Assistance Program website at: http://www.ctdssmap.com.  NOTE: Doctors on this list and doctors that the Provider Relations refer to are doctors who are active in the DSS Medicaid payment system, and are not necessarily doctors who definitely are taking new Medicaid patients.

TO FIND PROVIDERS IN CONNECTICUT'S COMMUNITY RESOURCES DATABASE:
Search by Agency/Program Name: Practitioner Licensing and Investigation Section.

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PREPARED BY: 211/rj
CONTENT LAST REVIEWED: June2012