I've had some ongoing issues since an emergent surgery in May 2022. My regular doctor has pretty much thrown up her hands and said "I don't know" and I've tried to get in-person second opinions but all have a 6-9 month wait.

I am relatively familiar with them due to my line of work, but I have never used them and can't speak to a yes/no or recommendation.

You may have already looked into this or your employer may not offer it, but one other thing to check into in situations like this is if your employer offers any type of benefits navigation or advocacy services. Common brand names are Patient Advocates, Quantum, and Virgin Pulse. Lots of insurance companies have an embedded advocacy function as well that may or may not carry a separate brand name. If available, they may be able to help you navigate the situation and validate that 2nd.MD is a good or bad option and/or reroute you to in-person care on a shorter timeline.

I can be rather skeptical about the advocacy services, but helping to navigate situations such as yours is something that they seem to do quite well.

I did in 2021 and had a great experience. It was the first year my work insurance offered it and it was good timing. I needed some peace of mind about an upcoming surgery plan for thyroid cancer. They will take care of everything once you start your case so you can actually just sit back and wait, although I ended up offering to provide a lot of records myself because I already had it and I was hoping to speed up the process so I could schedule surgery. They matched me with a specialist within 2 weeks of me starting my case, someone who had great credentials and was head of ENT surgery for a major hospital system. I got a virtual appt scheduled a couple days later. They scheduled a 30 min window but the doc ended up chatting with me for 45 min, which was awesome. He went through all my records and he had the exact same recommendation as my oncology surgeon. He was also very reassuring and helpful and answered many questions.

Through all that, you have a contact from 2nd.MD checking in with you to make sure everything is humming along. They also scheduled a nurse for my case. She called me before and after my procedure, and then every month for 6 months after my surgery. It was extremely helpful to have that so I could also ask her little questions that came up in between doc appts.

Now that I'm on the other side, all is well. But when I think back about how scary everything was then with not knowing, it was so helpful to have this benefit.

I definitely recommend trying them out. Hopefully you get the same level of care that I had.

Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.