Talking with Your Doctor - Part II
Posted by drbob2 on Jul 6, 2008
In Part 1 of this 2 part blog entry, I pointed out what’s obvious about talking with your doctor: the information you share is essential to your patient-physician relationship and can positively or negatively affect your health and your health care. The federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has published “Quick Tips—When Talking with Your Doctor” which is available at http://www.ahrq.gov/consumer/quicktips/doctalk.htm. You may want to print that paper from the website (it’s only two pages) and keep it with your medicines so you can review it before your next doctor’s visit.
“Quick Tips” emphasizes three related components of talking with your doctor. First, give information, don’t wait to be asked. Second, get information. Third, take the information home.
Give Information
If your visit is for a routine checkup or physical exam, take some time the day before your appointment to review everything that’s gone on with your health since your last visit. Be sure to tell your doctor if you have had any persisting pain, unexplained weight loss, breathing problems, decrease in exercise tolerance, lumps, or bumps, or anything else that you remember, write them down so you won’t forget them during the visit tomorrow. You may also want to mention aches and pains or even injuries that have gotten better by themselves or that you treated with home remedies.
If your visit is because you are ill, you will want to write down when it started, what you have done to help (and whether or not it did help), whether it’s getting better, staying the same, or getting worse. Again, write everything you can think of about what ails you down—if the doctor asks you, you have your answer ready. And, if the doctor does not ask you, you can ask him or her about any aspect of your illness that you want to know more about.
If it’s your first visit to this doctor, be prepared to answer, either on forms or in conversation, questions about allergies, bleeding tendencies, whether or not you are diabetic, and whether or not you have ever had blood clots in your legs or lungs.
In addition, you will also be asked about all the medicines you take as well as any vitamins or herbal preparations. Have you ever had a heart attack or stroke? Any operations or hospitalizations? If so, when, for what, and who was your doctor? Then, while you are reviewing all this the day before your visit, take a minute and ask yourself whether there’s anything else in your personal medical history—or your family’s history (like heart attacks, diabetes, strokes, or siblings or cousins dying in childhood) that can help your doctor get a complete picture of your individual health. Be as complete as possible and, if you remember something later, call the office to add it to your record.
Get Information
Once you have answered all the questions asked and, if necessary, volunteered information that you think is important and relevant to your healthcare, it’s your turn to ask questions.
- What do you think my health status is?
- What are the results of all my tests and x-rays—may I have a copy of the results, please? If you need additional tests, be sure to ask why. And don’t be shy—in this era of transparency and accountability—to ask how much everything costs. If your doctor doesn’t know how much the charges are, how can he or she assess the cost/benefit of the test?
- What exactly am I supposed to do now?
- What are these medicines for?
- How will I know if they are effective?
- Should I expect any side effects from these medicines and, if so, should I call you about them?
Of course these are not all the questions you may want to ask but they should serve to get you started asking the right questions at the right time. It is also important to ask “How can I reach you if I have problems?”
Take Information Home
The third component of AHRQ’s “Tips…” is essential. It doesn’t matter if you ask all the questions you have and your doctor answers them all if you trust to your memory and then forget everything on the way home. Bring a pad and pen so you can make notes of what you asked and what your doctor answered. It’s always good , especially if you need more tests or have a chronic illness to ask for written instructions, brochures, care guidelines or audio tapes or even CD’s to keep handy at home—not just for you but for anyone else in your family that needs to know what to do to keep you on your plan of care. And, if you do not trust your memory or ability to take notes, bring someone from your family with you who can concentrate on writing down all the important information.
- If your doctor prescribed medicines, fill the prescription and take it according to instructions.
- If your symptoms get worse, call your physician
- If you have additional tests, you have a right to know the results. If your doctor does not call you within 3 days of most tests, you should call him or her.
Remember you can read and print the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s “Quick Tips—When Talking with Your Doctor” http://www.ahrq.gov/consumer/quicktips/doctalk.htm
It’s all about your health care and building the doctor patient relationship.
If you have a topic you’d like me to address, just send me an email at drbob@superhealthms.com
Talking with Your Doctor
Posted by drbob2 on Jul 6, 2008
It just makes sense to have an ongoing relationship with one physician who is the first person you contact when you need medical checkup or have health questions. For purposes of discussion let’s call that relationship with your physician your Medical Home.
This is even more important if you have a chronic health condition like diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis, chronic lung disease, or high cholesterol. It’s one thing to have a Medical Home that provides the context for your patient-doctor relationship, but what actually goes on between you and your doctor when you see him or her professionally? Are you afraid to see the doctor and only go when someone in your family makes you? If that is the case, then you may show up with an attitude like “OK, I’m here, doctor, , now you have to guess why. If you don’t ask just the right questions and find out what’s wrong with me, I’m going home and tell my family that I’m in the pink.” That’s a case of playing “guess what’s wrong with me” and it sets the stage for an unhealthy relationship. If you called a plumber to your home, I’ll bet you don’t expect them to spend their time, and your money, turning on every faucet, flushing the toilet and checking the water heater to find out why you called him in.
On the other hand, some of us want reassurance for every little sniffle, and to get it, we may present a long litany of not only what our symptoms are but so many details that the main message is buried and may not be dealt with during our appointment.
How much information, and how many details, are helpful? In general, fever, bleeding, pain, change in bladder or bowel habits, loss of appetite (especially if it is associated with unintentional weight loss), shortness of breath, swelling, bumps and lumps, inability to go to work or school, any change in our senses or level of consciousness are some of the things that good physicians pay special attention to. These symptoms (indications of an illness or disorder that you experience, as opposed to signs, those indicators that you don’t feel but are observed by your doctor) usually lead your doctor to ask a number of questions to further assess the problem.
One way to make the most of our visit to the doctor is to prepare for it, using the Golden Rule. The whole value of a visit to the doctor, whether it’s for a medical checkup or for something that ails you, is based upon information: who gives it; who receives and understands it; and what happens because of it. The Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ) has developed “Quick Tips—When Talking with Your Doctor” available at http://www.ahrq.gov/consumer/quicktips/doctalk.htm. You may want to take a look at these “Quick Tips.” In my next entry, I’ll expand on some of AHRQ’s Tips and other factors that can enhance your communication with your doctor. It’s all part of having a good doctor patient relationship.