Managing Your Health as the Boss & the Patient

When your health becomes complicated and chronic you will quickly discover you become both the boss and the manager of your own health, on top of being the patient. Here’s 7 tips to make the process easier for you:

According to two national surveys, 60-80% of patients leave out relevant health information to their doctors. Patients want to avoid being judged, getting lectured, or they get scared or don’t want to be considered difficult thus leaving out what is important for them. Your provider doesn’t come 1st, you do. Many of us need to have a very honest conversation with ourselves prior to heading to medical appointments. That looks like taking an honest self-evaluation involving “How do I feel? How have I actually been?” and from there it’s confronting examples such as "what is my diet really like?". Spend the time on yourself prior to your visits. You don’t want your provider phoning in your visit, so why should you?

1. How are you?

Some doctors' offices still use CD’s for records. Be sure to ask in your visit for a copy of your labs and imagery. If they tell you a CD format then this is when you can ask to use your phone to screen grab the monitor with the imagery/report. Let’s say you’re in an office that can email you such materials, they may need you to sign off on that which means it will be easier to get that going while in the office. More clinics are getting" patient portals” which are a convenient means of viewing results. Some portals don’t let you download. Be prepared to have to screen grab data, label them, and see #3.

2. Obtain your labs and imagery.

Once you have your data, a savvy move is to get a cloud folder/drive going.
There are many reasons for this.
A. It’s a central location vs. this portal and that portal or emails. (this will become very key for you)
B. It’s a location you will always have access to.
C. Unlike portals, you will likely always know the password.
Label your screen grabs/imagery/reports in a manner you will be able to readily find in the future for referencing. Including the year in the title isn’t always a bad idea either. You want to be able to know your good health baselines too! This method can include insurance and medical billing as well. Taking it to the next level, some patients even get an entire separate email address with affiliated drive exclusively for health matters.

4. Charting your journey.

While your situation seems so easy to remember and memorable now, you will forget details and dates. That is what a very loose journal is for. Don’t complicate it so you lose momentum. I like a calendar spiral one that has a pocket for notes from providers, business cards, bills and so on. Document your fevers, sweats, fatigue days, doctors appt’s, blood pressure, whatever is relevant to your situation. Don’t clutter this with other facets of life like kids or work meeting schedules. This is yours and yours alone and helps you check in with point number 1 on this list. ;)

5. Practicality: getting a ride if you can’t drive for procedures.

If you are solo on your journey, know that some medical facilities might have a ride-share program for surgery and procedures. Larger ones also have arrangements with hotels. Some locales might have a medical ride-share program too. I have heard many patients tell me they UBER’d to the ER or Urgent Care and back home. Inquire with your facility if they have a program to help out with rides if you are facing a procedure when you cannot drive.

This might sound obvious but ask the basics like “what can I expect?”, “what’s the worst and best case scenario”?, “what are some alternatives?”, “who/what else can I onboard here?”. Bring a pen and paper (or that calendar/journal you are using) and take notes. Echoing number 2 above, also be sure to ask for any results in the office.

6. In the patient chair.

7. Care to share and share to care.

You’d be surprised how un-alone you are going through something this challenging. There is a lot of power and benefit in “hive mind” atmospheres. We lose so much progress in healthcare and as individuals when we refrain from sharing and educating, because your experience, just like everyone else, can in fact be educational. In Chinese medicine, many illnesseses involve the stagnation of Qi. Meaningful sharing, speaking, walking with friends/family helps move your healthy Qi flow to help correct illness.