Top Doctors 2011: The List

Specialties A-F

Specialties G-L

Specialties M-O

Specialties P

Specialties Q-Z

Who Decides

Frequently asked questions about the Top Doctors selection process

Q: Why didn’t you choose my doctor?

We don’t pick the docs—Denver physicians do. For the past 18 years, 5280 has surveyed doctors and asked them, specialty by specialty, which metro-area physicians they would trust to treat themselves and their families. Our theory is that medical professionals are best qualified to judge other medical professionals. The ballot is posted online at 5280.com from mid-January to mid-March each year. Every metro-area doctor with a valid Colorado medical license can fill it out. Once the doctor hits “save,” the votes are entered into our database and automatically tallied.

Q: So doesn’t that make it a big popularity contest?

In many respects, yes. We hope that doctors will give us careful, responsible answers, but there’s little we can do to stop them from block voting or recommending their golfing buddies. Using the list is a lot like going to your doctor and asking for a referral. The difference is that we’re asking a lot more doctors than you’d ever have a chance to. Also, by working to raise our return rate each year (it was 18 percent this year), we hope to correct for politics. The more doctors who participate, the less chance that any one person’s aspirations will win out.

Q: I thought my doc was a good physician, but she’s not on the list. What does that mean?

Nothing. She probably is a good doctor. The selection of doctors by peer review can leave many excellent doctors off the list. Because longtime, well-known doctors have the advantage of name recognition, the list may favor that kind of doctor. However, that in no way means your doctor isn’t completely competent.

Q: I’m a doctor and I couldn’t access the ballot. Why?

We get the database of all licensed physicians in the state from the Colorado Board of Medical Examiners and select the doctors located in the seven metro-area counties (Denver, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Boulder, Adams, Douglas, and Jefferson), which results in a list of more than 8,500 docs.

If you attempted to log on to the system with your last name and physician license number and received a pop-up response that “5280 could not locate your profile,” that means there is a disconnect between your information and the information we have in the system. If you’ve recently moved to Colorado and haven’t updated your address with the Colorado Board of Medical Examiners, for example, your license will not register as local and therefore will be invalid. If you have registered your license at an address outside the seven metro counties, you will not be in our database. If you have a hard-to-spell last name or if you’ve recently changed your name, it’s possible that the information we have from the state is incorrect and you will have trouble logging in.

In the future, if you have difficulty logging in to our system, please use the “comment” tool on the website and let us know. We’re happy to work through the problem so you can vote.

Q: I’ve heard the list is rigged—that only doctors who advertise with 5280 make it. Is that true?

No. The Top Doctors list is completely unaffected by which doctors advertise in the magazine. In fact, only one percent of doctors on this year’s list are advertisers. Doctors sometimes choose to advertise after they’ve been chosen for the list, but how much, or if and when, doctors choose to advertise are not taken into consideration. Period.

Q: How are the medical specialties chosen?

Through the years we’ve worked to improve Top Doctors by updating the categories, increasing the number of eligible voters, and considering suggestions from health-care professionals. In recent years, we’ve refined our categories to include only specialties approved by the American Board of Medical Specialties (although we do not include every ABMS specialty). This system for choosing categories eases the confusion among doctors filling out the survey and reduces the amount of lobbying we get from doctors and hospitals that’d like us to include some more obscure specialties.

Q: So why aren’t categories such as chiropractic and podiatry ever included?

Although these areas of medicine are relevant and respectable, our list is a physician-only (MDs and DOs) directory.

Q: Does 5280 check out all the doctors on the list?

The magazine’s research department independently verifies every doctor’s name, phone number, office address, and hospital affiliation. We also take the additional step of sending our list to the Colorado Board of Medical Examiners for approval—meaning doctors on our list do not currently have disciplinary actions against their licenses.

Q: You sometimes choose doctors to be profiled or to serve as sources for the story. How do you choose them?

5280 likes to introduce you to some of our Top Docs through small profiles or by using them to explain different aspects of medicine. We believe this is a great way to show our readers that these physicians are not just names on a list. In choosing doctors to include, we do our best to vary the medical specialties represented and introduce you to doctors we have never profiled before.

13123 E. 16th Ave. Aurora 80045 720-777-6200

8550 W. 38th Ave., Suite 205
Wheat Ridge 80033
303-467-8987

4600 E. Hale Parkway, Suite 430
Denver 80220
303-377-6401

13123 E. 16th Ave.
Aurora 80045
720-777-6660

2055 High St., Suite 260 Denver 80205 720-475-8730

660 Bannock St. Denver 80204
303-436-6000
Not taking new patients

2490 W. 26th Ave., Suite 220A
Denver 80211
303-433-9729

1746 Cole Blvd., Suite 150
Lakewood 80401
303-914-8800

1400 Jackson St.
Denver 80206
303-398-4105

4231 W. 16th Ave.
Denver 80204
303-629-4880

1400 Jackson St.
Denver 80206
303-398-1355

8510 Bryant St., Suite 350
Westminster 80031
303-430-2640

10350 E. Dakota Ave.
Denver 80247
303-367-2899

4700 E. Hale Parkway, Suite 400
Denver 80220
303-321-0302