Patient Self Record Keeping, How to Manage Your Own Medical Care

Patient Self Record Keeping
How to Manage Your Own Medical Care

So you finally have that appointment with a new specialist. The
receptionist has advised you that you should come fifteen minutes
early to fill out the “Standard” forms that new patients must fill out.
“Hello!” When you get that clipboard which is several
papers thick, most of us just sigh and wish we had gotten there a half hour
earlier.
I am sure for many; our first instinct is to rush through the checkmarks, not
Realizing that an incorrect check mark in the wrong place could play havoc
with your medical care. If in fact, the physician notices.
So let’s review what kind of forms you will be filling out.
• General Information, Insurance
• Medical History, yours and your relatives including siblings
• Testing History, Lab Work, Medications
• HIPPA
• (Don’t forget your reading glasses as many of these
are in small print to save a tree)


I have often wondered why we duplicate this information repeatedly with
a new doctor. Now if you are like me a part of the sandwich generation
in between aging parents and their siblings and children and young adult
children who never remember their medical history, you can probably stay
in a general state of confusion.
So I have a few tips for you as a cardiologist’s wife and his office manager.
1. First of all, each time you fill out those forms, ask the receptionist to give
you a copy.
2. Keep these copies in the same place that you keep birth certificates
insurance policies and immunization record.
3. Each time you have blood work, a test or have a hospital or
doctor visit, ask to get a copy of the results or notes, you may
get some grimaces about this but you are entitled. Remember
they are your records.
4. Keep those emergency room and hospital stay discharge papers
5. Save your receipts for any prescription medication in the same place.
6. Become a proactive patient, take charge of your care,
become informed about what is going on with you.
7. Keep a file like this for each person you are responsible for including
yourself.
8. Keep a dry erase board or memo pad on your refrigerator
of pressing questions for your next doctor’s visit or just
inquiries that will make your care easier.
9. Write these up before the visit and take them with you.
10. Carry this file with you for ready reference whenever you
go to a new doctor’s visit.
By the way, this is the way it is in other countries where doctor’s don’t
keep medical records and you must keep your own. Welcome to the new
world of being responsible for yourself and your own well being.

Next blog: What happens with your patient information after you fill it out?


You can duplicate this blog as it is with the following information:
© Sunita Pandit 2010, Mrs. Cardiology
http://mrscardiology.com
Contact Sunita at: sunita.s.pandit@gmail.com
Sunita is Office Manager for her cardiologist husband and her fields of
Expertise are:
• Healthy Nutrition and Cooking
• Lifestyle Creation for Families who are Caregivers to a Relative with Handicaps
• Information on Youth Gene Cluster Reactivation
• Reliv Nutritional Distributor, “the Shaker Diva”
• Distributor for Hand Held Galvanic Spa, “the Wrinkle Free Diva”

Ten Tips to Improve Your Health, Create the Perfect BMI Starting with Life Saving Decision to Just Start!

Why More Oxygen is Important to Your Health

Ten tips to improve your health, and Create the

Perfect BMI Starting with Life Saving Decision to Just Start!

Recently my guru, the Techno Granny, Joanne Quinn-Smith told me that I must stay focused on Mrs. Cardiology. I told her that my weight has been a pressing issue for some time. So I really needed to take the time out to address this or I could not work at my maximum capability.

I constantly re-embark on a journey about discovering a life changing health technology that is not invasive, does not require expensive exercise equipment or side effect producing drugs.

To begin at the beguine, truly it is, all my blood work is normal and being a cardiologist’s wife I would be the first to know if it wasn’t.

My inquisitive nature and thirst for alternative knowledge leads me to a plethora of information that I constantly sift through to find my perfect fit and now my life has a brand new path that does not focus on a single plan.

The fact that I have found so many methods of body changing techniques causes me to enter the 'information overload' and 'severe self diagnosed ADD of try it all at once!'... Believe me it does not work... There is no magic pill or routine or program. It all boils down to a simple truth of Just moove

Things I have learned from all the different programs is the fact that you basically have to do something different than what you have done before and are doing now. And everyone knows that CHANGE is hard.

1. .Movement is the Key to your body changing- move more than you do now.
2. .Eat healthy - figure it out for yourself with all the help out there... the key is to watch your sugar and fat intake the rest is a salad toss!
3. Drink and pee an awefull lot more than you do now...
   

Put these 3 together for your optimal good health….

My husband, the cardiologist has no idea what I am doing nor has a clue of the surprise waiting for him in the coming weeks. So keep it secret those of you that know him. Let him express that he has noticed the transformation on his own.

So I promised you ten tips. The next seven are mine.

4. Change your mind. If you are decidedly not at the perfect weight, have the perfect BMI and your health is less than exceptional, then you need to do something. So make that decision today.

5. Think about options. In the long run will it be more painful to keep doing what you are doing with your health or undergo the pain of changing. Exercise, a strict reginmen of eating, drinking more water may not be exciting but if you don’t do it, think about the alternative.

6. Good news, the isometric and resistance exercises with no equipment are a breeze. Anything you can do to improve your health while lieing down is alright with me. (Now I know that heart experts recommend regular sexual activity for a healthy heart but that’s not what I am talking about. Even you married folk, get your minds out of the gutter.)

7. Water is the substance of life. Our bodies are 70% water. So to sustain that delicate balance whether you like water or not, think of ways to drink more of it and make it palatable. You will soon begin to see changes in your body, your skin and your energy level.

8. Planning is important in any new regimen. Shop for the week and two days before the week is out, shop again. Most fruits and vegetables have a nutrition shelf life of no more than five days.

9. Posture! Do you remember that your mother used to tell you to stand up straight? Not only is it sexy but it’s healthy. A straight spine means a healthy back. How do you get a healthy back? You exercise. Even if you have a weak back, resistance and isometrics are still doable.

10. Persistance! Is this a quick fix? Hell no! It’s a lifetime change. Once you start on ZNA’s program, backsliding will make you feel so crappy that you won’t have any challenge with persistence.

TAsk Sunita.com is a log about Sunita’s odyssey in staying sane and saving her life.

This blog is not designed

to help cure any illnesses or dispense any medical advice. I will also provide resources

that can help you in your search for clarity and explanations