Pulmonologist or Infectious Disease Doc in charge?

@jsblair Welcome to the chaotic world of medical treatment in our country.
It sounds like you had an ideal situation where you lived before, and have now moved to an area (like my winter home) that hasn't yet progressed to coordinated care.
This tale has been repeated thousands of times in this group and others on Mayo Connect.

Here is my best guess, based on over 8 years here, on what is going on. Your small town pulmonologist, like hundreds of others, sees almost NO cases of MAC/NTM/Pseudomonas in any given year (despite what it sounds like here, these are very rare infections.) And they probably see few, if any, cases of diagnosed Bronchiectasis in a year (again a rare disease). The practice sees hundreds of cases of COPD, Asthma, chronic bronchitis and pneumonia, is very busy, so the doc has little time to "study up" and stay current on diseases and infections like ours, Cystic Fibrosis and a few others. So, wisely, they refer you. But in this case it was a poor referral because, because it is just as likely that you will be referred to an ID doc equally unfamiliar with your conditions.

What might be your next step? You need to find a pulmonologist familiar with MAC & Bronchiectasis, and unless your new primary provider has suggestions, that is going to require some work on your part. And probably travel to these new providers. My friend in Southern Illinois must travel at least an hour to each of her specialists in the nearest City with a University medical school and teaching hospital.

How to start? You could start with this list of care centers and see if any is near you:
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/the-bronchiectasis-care-center-network-33-centers/
You can also search on-line for pulmonologists near you, using a wide circle of 50-100 miles, and read their bios to see if the include bronchiectasis in their specialties.

If you are within reasonable distance, and still in the same state, you could continue to see your old docs, using telemedicine for in-between scheduled visits.

Can you tell us generally where you are located, someone here may have a suggestion for you?

Thank you Sue! I’m in Northern California, pulmonologist is in small town of Chico, The Infectious Doc will be in Sacramento at UCDavis, a state of the art facility - but she looks very young, fresh out of medical school. I may indeed request my previous infectious disease doc via telehealth in Los Angeles. I had hoped when I moved last year that the NTM infection would stay gone, I had cleared it - but I know from reading posts here that it doesn’t always work that way!

With me on both times I had Pseudomonas 2 years in a row, the Infectious Disease Center treated me including taking blood every 4/5 days and keeping my Pulmonologist and ENT Drs in the loop !