Urologists for kidney stones in California

Most urology appointments after a stone are about removing the stone. Preventing the next one is a different conversation, and not every practice offers it. These four questions sort that out in a two-minute phone call, before you spend a copay finding out.

1. Does the doctor do metabolic stone evaluations? This is the term for working out why you form stones. If the answer is no, you want a different practice.
2. Do they order 24-hour urine collections? The standard test for stone risk. A practice that does not order them is not doing prevention.
3. Was my stone sent for composition analysis? If you passed or had a stone removed and nobody told you what it was made of, ask. Prevention depends on the type.
4. Do they work with a renal dietitian? Diet does much of the work in stone prevention, and urologists are not dietitians. We list renal dietitians separately.

We cannot tell you which clinicians answer yes — the federal registry does not record it, and we will not guess. If you find out, tell us and we will note it against the listing.

Where we have it, each listing shows how many kidney stone procedures that clinician billed to Medicare in the reporting year — shock wave lithotripsy, ureteroscopy, and percutaneous nephrolithotomy. It is a public record of billing, published by CMS.