Can I work with Dr. Sater alongside my own doctor?

Yes, and it is the usual arrangement. This is a specialist endocrinology and obesity medicine practice rather than primary care, so most patients keep their existing physician for everything outside that scope. The arrangement holds together when each side knows what the other is doing. It falls apart when two prescribers adjust the same medication, or when the same panel gets drawn twice in a month by two people who have not spoken.

Who does what

The division is usually straightforward. The endocrinologist takes the thyroid, diabetes, insulin resistance, adrenal, pituitary, bone, reproductive hormone and weight management problems, along with the medications attached to them. Your primary care physician keeps the rest: vaccinations, cancer screening, blood pressure and cholesterol management, acute illness, mental health, referrals to other specialties, and the annual overview that no single specialist is positioned to do. Anything on the boundary, such as a statin started for a metabolic reason, is assigned to one of you explicitly rather than assumed.

What your own doctor should receive

Communication is the part that decides whether this works. With your permission, a specialist assessment should reach your primary care physician and should contain the working diagnosis, what was ordered and why, what was prescribed and at what dose, and what is being monitored at what interval. You are entitled to a copy of the same document. If nothing has arrived, ask for it, and take it to your next primary care appointment rather than relying on memory in the room.

The problems worth heading off

Three problems recur. Duplicate lab ordering wastes money and produces results from different assays that are hard to compare, and it is prevented by agreeing who orders the thyroid or metabolic panel. Conflicting dose changes, where two prescribers adjust levothyroxine or a diabetes medication inside the same window, are prevented by naming one prescriber for that drug. And a medication list only one clinician can see is a real hazard with GLP-1 medications, which slow gastric emptying before planned anaesthesia and, in the case of tirzepatide, reduce the efficacy of oral hormonal contraceptives.

The concrete step is short. At your next appointment with either physician, ask who is responsible for which medication and which labs, and write the answer down. A virtual specialist also needs you to have a named local physician for anything that requires examination, a procedure or urgent attention, because a video visit cannot examine a neck, perform a diabetic foot check or draw blood.