Hello coldwut: The Skeezyks doesn't really know the answers to your questions. But I saw that no one had replied to your post. So I thought I would.

I would think that, to some extent, how you proceed here would depend on who's paying the bills. If you have health insurance of some sort, & they're paying the bills, how you proceed here may depend on what they require. In some cases health insurance providers require that you be referred to a specialist by a general practice doctor. In other cases, one may be able to go directly to a specialist (an endocrinologist, for example) by-passing the pcp. If you're insured, & you don't follow the prescribed procedure, you may have difficulty getting your bills covered.

If, on the other hand, you're paying for this yourself, then you're free to do what you want, although some specialists will only see patients who've been referred by another doctor. So you'd need to check this out with the specialist's office.

Since I have not done what you're doing, I really can't comment, with any authority, regarding your other questions. But good luck!