How to choose a doctor in India: a checklist that survives contact with reality

Most people in India choose a doctor the way they choose a plumber: somebody they know used one, the clinic is on the way home, and the appointment was available this week. That is not irrational. It is what you do when the information you would actually need is not available anywhere you can reach in the time you have.

The problem is that the three signals people fall back on — a personal recommendation, a high star rating, and a crowded waiting room — measure things that are only loosely related to whether this doctor is a good fit for your problem. A recommendation measures one person's experience of one condition. A rating measures how the visit felt, mostly the waiting time and the manner. A crowd measures marketing, location and price, and it measures them best in exactly the practices you should be most careful about.

What follows is the checklist we would use ourselves. It is deliberately boring: four checks you can do before you book, three questions to ask in the first ten minutes of the consultation, and one rule about when to walk away. None of it requires medical knowledge. All of it is about credentials, continuity and cost — the three things a patient can verify and a brochure cannot fake.

First, work out which question you are actually asking

Choosing a doctor is really three different problems wearing the same name, and the right method differs for each.

• A one-off problem. A fever that will not settle, a rash, a sprain. What matters most is access: someone competent, reachable this week, near enough that a follow-up is not a day's work. Credentials still matter; continuity does not.
• A long-running condition. Diabetes, blood pressure, thyroid, asthma, a joint that has hurt for two years. Here continuity is the whole game. A good-enough doctor you see every three months for five years will almost always produce better care than a celebrated one you see once.
• A specific procedure or decision. A surgery, an implant, a treatment plan with real trade-offs. This is where the specialist's specific experience of your specific problem matters, where a second opinion is cheap insurance, and where the volume the surgeon does of that operation is a fair question to ask.

People routinely apply the third method to the first problem — hunting for the best dermatologist in the city for a rash — and the first method to the third, booking whoever a relative names for an operation. Sorting this out before you start saves most of the wasted effort.

The four checks worth doing before you book

1. Is the doctor registered, and with which councilIn India a person may practise modern medicine only if they hold a current registration with a state medical council or with the National Medical Commission. That registration is a matter of public record and is searchable. It is the only check on this list with a yes or no answer, it takes about two minutes, and it is the one people skip. We wrote out the mechanics of it in how to check a doctor's registration.
2. Does the qualification match the problemThe letters after a name are not decoration; they describe a training pathway and a system of medicine. An MBBS is a basic modern-medicine degree. An MD or MS is a postgraduate speciality. A DM or MCh is a super-speciality on top of that. A BAMS, BHMS or BUMS is a qualification in a different system entirely, with a different council and a different scope. Our guide to what the letters after a doctor's name mean sets out which is which.
3. Where and how often do they actually sitA doctor listed at six hospitals is usually at each of them for a couple of hours a week. For a one-off consultation that is fine. For anything that needs follow-up, a practice the doctor keeps four or five days a week is worth more than a famous name who can next see you in March. Ask the reception which days the doctor is there and how far ahead the follow-up slot would be.
4. What the consultation costs, and what it includesAsk for the consultation fee, whether a review visit within a stated window is charged again, and whether tests are done in-house. All three are ordinary questions and a practice that will not answer them on the phone has told you something useful. We go through the arithmetic in what doctors charge in India.

Registration is the floor, not the ceiling

It is worth being precise about what a registration check does and does not prove, because both overclaiming and dismissing it are common.

So registration is a floor. Failing it is disqualifying; passing it is the beginning of the assessment, not the end. The useful way to think about it is as the check that removes the small number of catastrophic outcomes — the unqualified practitioner, the borrowed degree, the name that belongs to somebody else — which is exactly the category that a star rating will never catch.

What ratings measure, and what they miss

Patient ratings are not worthless. They are a reasonable measure of the things a patient is well placed to judge: whether the doctor listened, whether the explanation made sense, whether the clinic ran to time, whether the staff were decent. Those things matter and they are hard to find out any other way.

What ratings cannot measure is clinical judgement. A patient cannot tell whether the test that was not ordered should have been, whether the antibiotic was necessary, or whether the referral came two months late. In practice, scores also drift upward for doctors who agree with patients, prescribe generously and run short consultations, none of which is a marker of quality.

The way to use ratings, then, is to read them rather than to count them. Ignore the average. Look at whether the same specific thing appears in several reviews written months apart. Explains clearly is a signal. Very good doctor is not.

The referral problem, stated plainly

A referral from a doctor you already trust is the single best lead you can get, for an obvious reason: they know the clinical question and they know who handles it well. It is also the lead most likely to be compromised, because referral in Indian private practice is sometimes a commercial relationship rather than a clinical one.

You do not need to be cynical about this, and accusing your own doctor of it is both rude and usually wrong. You do need one question, asked lightly: is there anyone else you would send a member of your own family to. A doctor referring on clinical grounds will name two or three people without hesitating. A doctor who names exactly one, insists on that one, and has the appointment made for you before you have agreed is worth a second look.

The first ten minutes are an assessment, in both directions

You cannot judge a doctor's competence from one consultation, and anyone who says otherwise is selling something. You can judge their process, and process is a decent proxy. Three questions do most of the work.

1. What do you think this is, and what else could it be? You are listening for a differential — two or three possibilities and a reason for preferring one. An answer with no alternatives in it is a warning sign on anything other than the most obvious complaint.
2. What happens if we wait? Almost every non-emergency problem has a do-nothing option with a known consequence. A doctor who can describe it is thinking about your problem rather than reciting a protocol.
3. How will we know whether this is working, and by when? A treatment without a review point is a treatment nobody is measuring. The answer should include a date and a description of what better looks like.

Carry the rest of it in writing: your current medicines with doses, previous reports in date order, and the two or three things you most want answered. A consultation in a busy Indian OPD is often eight to twelve minutes. Preparation is the only lever you control over how much of it is useful.

Cost, and the questions people are embarrassed to ask

Asking about money does not mark you as a difficult patient, and the Charter of Patients' Rights explicitly contemplates your being told what treatment will cost. Three questions cover most of it: what is the consultation fee, is a review visit within two weeks charged, and roughly what will the tests you are ordering cost. If a procedure is proposed, ask for the estimate in writing and ask what is not included in it.

Fee and quality are only loosely related in either direction. A high fee often reflects the address and the fit-out. A low fee often reflects a government salary behind it. Neither tells you much about the doctor.

When to change doctor

Changing doctor is normal, it is your decision alone, and you are entitled to your records when you go. The situations that justify it are narrower than the internet suggests, but they are real:

• The plan has not been reviewed despite the agreed review point passing, more than once.
• You have asked a direct question twice and not received a direct answer.
• You were discouraged from getting a second opinion, or your records were withheld when you asked for them.
• The prescription grows at every visit and nothing is ever stopped.
• You are being treated for a condition outside the practitioner's system or scope of registration.

Disagreeing with you is not on that list. A doctor who tells you something you did not want to hear, declines to prescribe an antibiotic you asked for, or refuses to order a scan that will not change the decision is doing the job properly.

The ten-minute version

1. Decide which of the three problems you have: one-off, long-running, or a specific decision.
2. Check the registration against the council register. Note the council and the number.
3. Read the qualification and confirm the system of medicine matches the problem.
4. Ask reception which days the doctor sits there and how soon a follow-up would be.
5. Ask the consultation fee and whether a review visit is charged.
6. Read three reviews properly instead of looking at the average.
7. Write down your medicines, your reports and your three questions before you go.

You can browse doctors by city and speciality here, and every profile shows what was checked, what was not, and the date each check was made. Where we have not verified something, the profile says so rather than leaving you to assume.

General information about how healthcare in India is organised and regulated, current at 17 Sep 2026. Not advice about your situation, and not for emergencies — call 108. Errors can be reported through the corrections process.