Choosing a doctor in Japan

How do you go about choosing a doctor in Japan?

In the past, I would just go to the clinic that is closest or the one with the operating hours that would work best with my schedule, but after having had a few not so satisfying experiences I recently am more careful with choosing my doctors.

First of all though, I still check clinics that are close by but I also check the website and reviews on Google or Japanese clinic review websites. As I have mainly had bad experiences in Japan with older doctors, I definitely try to avoid these.

So, if the website looks like it's from the 90s or if the reviews talk about an elderly doctor, the clinic is a "no go" for me.

This is just my experience, but with elderly doctors it seems like they don’t know much about recent research and can’t really accept it when someone that is still “young” is sick so they will just prescribe some medicine and send you home without any examination.

With elder people hearing issues are common which makes communication more difficult than it already is when visiting a doctor in Japan as a foreigner.

Also, I see a lot of patients who talk about the doctor not listening to them in their reviews. I try to avoid these kinds of doctors as well. I get that there is also a time factor, but still, if the patient has worries a doctor should address them properly.

Google reviews can also give you a certain idea of how long waiting times can be. So you can either factor in enough time or go for a clinic which appears to have less waiting time. If a reservation is needed, I definitely do prefer places that have an online reservation system. It is still rather rare in Japan, but I do see more and more clinics that offer this service.

Of course, reviews are not everything and in general, people are more likely to write about a bad experience than writing about a good one -- with Google you can write reviews even if you have never visited a place, and purchased fake positive reviews are a thing, as well.

I don’t think fake reviews are very common when it comes to smaller clinics in Japan, but you never know. If you are unsure about a review checking other reviews of that account can be a way to better judge if it is genuine or not.