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”