Sacramento Health care vs Austin Health care? (Houston, San Antonio: insurance, live)

[ellie84]

Sacramento Health care vs Austin Health care?
Which one is best over all?

[janejanejanejanejane]

Houston

[Trainwreck20]

Yeah, not sure how to compare those. Austin is fine unless you end up with something super serious or out of the norm, in which case you go to Houston, most likely.

[3divina]

The Burn Unit is in San Antonio.

[spchtx]

Dell is getting the world class pediatric heart surgeon from Houston's Children's Hospital. He will have a state of the art heart unit that is built to his specifications. That's quite the score for Austin.

As for comparing Sacramento to Austin for medical care, it is done a little differently here. There is Austin Regional Clinic (ARC)that is set up similarly to how it is in Sacto. Think Sutter Medical Group, Mercy Medical Group, or UCD Medical Group. It is a group of doctors that all fall under the same group, so medical charts are linked. Difference from Sacramento is, you can easily choose to go to a doctor outside the group if your insurance has them as a provider. I have mostly ARC doctors, but I have been able to easily see an endocrinologist that is outside the ARC group. When we had any of the above 3, Sacramento area med groups, seeing someone outside that group was considered "out of network."

Other groups here are independent, so they do not share records in one system. You have to have records sent, so it's a little more of a hassle.

We have been very impressed with all the specialists we have seen here for my daughter and myself. My parents just moved here, and my mom has had some major heart issues since she has been here. She had issues in California as well, and she prefers her doctors here.

The only doctor I have had difficulty with is finding a good GP. I'm on number 4 since moving here 2 1/2 years ago. My first one moved, and I really liked her, but all the rest have just been so-so. I haven't felt that click of, "I'm really listening to you, and not just checking off boxes." The specialists I have seen have been great.

[A-Tex]

Since you're looking to retire, please make sure to do your research about what physicians take Medicare and whether you'll be able to find a PCP and specialists who are accepting new Medicare patients and the quality of those providers. This is a growing problem here.

[sanmiguel]

We lived in Austin for 10 years and were very satisfied with the physicians and care at the Austin Diagnostic Clinic and St. David's hospital. Three years ago we moved Folsom in the Sacramento Valley where we enrolled in Kaiser HMO (not available in Texas) and really like it. We prefer Kaiser as a one stop access to medical care but if we ever moved back to Austin, for sure we would go back to ADC. Hope this helps.