Newbie Medical Insurance Questions – California- Primary Care, Specialists, Etc

Hey All.. So I have never had insurance until now or will once the card etc, arrives.

Im in SoCal and I have IEHP. I have some questions, hopefully anyone can offer some insight.

If I dont like the primary care Dr Im given, can it be changed? Or am I stuck there? I live in a small town and the pickens are slim, but the larger cities with more choices arent that far… Can I request it be changed, and choose my own thats under IEHP?

I have been having stomach issues for awhile, and want to get it checked out by a gastroenterologist. If I go to my primary care Dr… can they say, oh let me just give you some type of medication first, or bandaid and wait to see, intead of giving me a referral to see a specialist? Can they deny you specialist care? I thought all I had to do was find a specialist on my own that accepts my insurance, that I felt I needed to see, and then contact insurance, etc. But it seems every special care has to go through a primary care Dr.

If primary Dr does give referral for any type of specialist care, is it to only one specific person? Or do I get to choose from a list of some sort of Dr’s under my IEHP plan? I would like to be able to look up, and research on my own, read reviews, to decide who I would be comfortable seeing as opposed to, nope this is who primary care Dr told me to go to…

If I do go to a specialist, does the primary Dr control what THEY think I need to get done with the specialist, what tests, etc, and thats all that wil be done based on primary Drs recommendation? Or does the specialist get to decide, etc?

Hope these questions made sense. Thanks