Step One: Learn Your Options

Step Two: Get Good Referrals

Step Three: Screening the Candidate

Step Four: Interviewing the Provider

Step Five: Forming a Partnership

Step One: Learn Your Options

Add to your M.D.'s recommendations by researching the latest resources to get all your treatment options.

Knowledge is power. Whether you are looking for information to enhance your health or searching for the answer to reverse a terminal illness, you'll want all the credible information you can find about your condition. And you can do just that when you learn all your options.

In order to do that, you'll need "The Seven Key Sources To Good Health Care Information." They are:

1. Your doctor and other health care providers
2. Other patients and their friends
3. Libraries
4. The Internet
5. Medical and Health Information Service Organizations
6. Advocacy Organizations and Support Groups
7. Professional Organizations and Trade Associations

Further, when gathering health care information, it important to use "The Three Question Test For Complete And Dependable Health Care Information."

1. What are the best treatments available in the world today for my health care condition/diagnosis?
2. Are those treatment proven effective?
3. How do I know if the information is reliable?

By using this test and the other strategies outlined in Chapter 1 of Five Steps To Selecting the Best Alternative Medicine, you can gain access to all the accurate and dependable health care information you need to make informed choice about your treatment options.

By getting informed you become a savvy health care consumer no longer bound to one doctor's opinion or one medical system's answers to meet yours and your family's health care needs. Remember, by learning all of your options, you increase your chances of getting the health care results you want.

Step Two: Get Good Referrals

Find referrals through various sources and verify that these referrals have the capability to really help you.

An effective selection process is the key to locating a good health care professional. Getting high quality referrals of good candidates is the best way to start that process. Step Two provides you with the information and know how to get those high quality referrals and to begin a selection strategy which can be used in hiring almost any alternative health care provider. Remember -they work for you!

Relying just on family and friends may not give you the selection choice you may need to find the alternative health professional that is right for you. You may need to rely on more than one referral source.

Here are the seven key sources for getting good referrals:

1. Family, friends and colleagues
2. Local alternative practitioners
3. Local health-food stores
4. Support groups
5. Professional associations
6. Alternative health care schools and colleges
7. Referrals services and advertisements

When getting a referral, you'll want to get as much information from your source as possible. Many times, with just a little extra information, you'll know immediately whether this referral has possibility for you or not. For this reason it is important to know the right questions to ask.