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You can begin to be a good partner in a healthy patient-physician relationship if you begin by respecting your body and taking good care of it.
1. Many health problems can be prevented if you protect yourself and your family by getting immunizations, being screened for health problems before they become serious and by making healthy lifestyle choices.
2. Practice medical self-care. You can manage a lot of minor health problems on your own with only a few simple skills. All it takes is for you to trust your common sense and monitor how well your efforts are working. Use a ?Self-Care Checklist? to record your self-care plan and then monitor whether your plan seems to help. If you do end up calling your doctor or advice nurse, she or she will want to know what your symptoms are; they will also want to know what you have already tried to do for the problem and how well your self-care plan worked. Plan a reasonable amount of time to see how well your self-care plan works; if the problems seems to be getting more severe, don?t wait too long before calling your doctor.
3. If your problem is serious enough to require medical attention, you may need to make an appointment with your doctor; it is best to prepare for this visit. Most medical appointments are scheduled to last only 10-15 minutes. The better organized you are for the visit, the more valuable will be the information and care you can get from the doctor during this visit.
If you?ve prepared a ?Self-Care Checklist? as mentioned above in Recommendation #2, take it with you
to the visit with the doctor. Prepare an ?Ask-the-Doctor Checklist? and take it with you to the visit, too.
Highlight the 3 most important questions that you want to have answered during your visit; it is not
reasonable to expect that your doctor will have time to answer a long list of questions. Write down
your hunches about what is wrong with you and what fears you have about this possible problem; these
are helpful for your doctor to better understand your problem and to better address your concerns about
your problem.
4. If your problem is serious enough to require medical attention, you may need to make an appointment to be seen in the doctor?s office. Remember that many healthcare Plans require that you have an assigned primary care or family doctor; when you need to make a visit, you need to make a visit with this primary care doctor. If you do not adhere to this Plan requirement, there may be limits to the Plan benefits. If your healthcare Plan does not require that you have an assigned primary care doctor, the Plan may require that you receive your care from a limited list of doctors, the Plan?s ?preferred providers;? again, if you do not adhere to this list of providers, there may be a limit to the Plan benefits. Always try to be familiar with your Plan before you need medical care.
5. Once you have prepared your ?Self-Care Checklist? and your ?Ask-the-Doctor Checklist,? it is time to call the doctor?s office for an appointment. With your checklists in hand, a phone call to the doctor?s office may be all that will be needed to manage a problem at home or to determine if an appointment is needed. Try to get the most from every phone call; prepare for your call.
Review your ?Self-Care Checklist? and your ?Ask-the-Doctor Checklist;? remember to highlight the 3
most important questions that you want to have answered. Have your calendar ready in case you need
to schedule an appointment. Have your insurance information available. If this is your first visit to the
doctor, you will most likely have a number of forms to fill out before the visit. Many doctors will send
you the forms so that they can be completed before your visit; if you have access to a FAX machine or
computer, the forms can often be FAXd to you or obtained from the doctor?s website to eliminate the
need to wait for the forms in the mail.
6. If you call the doctor?s office outside of normal business hours, you may need to leave a message so that the doctor or the doctor?s staff can call you back. Leave a clear message. Clearly state your name and phone number first. Then leave a one sentence description of the problem. Also leave some information about when you will be available at the phone number you have provided so that it is more likely that the doctor?s office can contact you quickly at the time that you will be available. Most doctor?s office make hundreds of phone calls daily and trying to assure that you are available when the doctor?s office returns your call will assure that your problem will be addressed sooner. If you speak to a receptionist, relay the same message and let them know if you specifically want to speak to the doctor. If the receptionist tells you that the doctor will call you back, ask when you might expect the return call to be sure that you are available; again this will assure that your problem will be addressed sooner. Finally, when the doctor?s calls back, briefly describe your problem, describe your major symptoms and ask your major questions; again this will speed up the treatment of your problem.
7. On the day of your appointment, be sure to take along your ?Self-Care Checklist,? your ?Ask-The-Doctor Checklist,? your insurance information, a list of any and all medications that you take on a regular basis and the forms that you received from your doctor?s office. Again, if this is your first visit with your doctor and if you have not received any forms in advance from the doctor?s office, go to your appointment 15-20 minutes early so that you have sufficient time to complete any required forms before the time of your appointment. If you have already had any kinds of tests performed for the problem for which you are seeing your doctor, try to take these test results with you; this will make your visit with your doctor much more thorough and may minimize the need for more visits with the doctor.
8. Be an active participant in every visit with your doctor. Explain clearly what is bothering you; your doctor has no way of knowing what you feel or what your concerns are about how you feel. Listen carefully to what the doctor recommends. Ask your 3 most important questions; ask more questions if you don?t understand the doctor?s explanation of your problem or the recommendations for treatment of your problem. Be honest and straightforward; if the doctor makes recommendations that make you uncomfortable, tell the doctor what you do or do not want to do. If the doctor prescribes a medication and you?d prefer not to take it, say so. If the doctor recommends a test and you?d prefer not to have the test, say so. If you are getting complementary treatment, such as acupuncture or chiropractic treatments, let your doctor know. To be a good partner in a healthy patient-physician relationship, your doctor must know all the factors that might affect your treatment, and you, the patient, are the only one who knows this information.
9. If your doctor recommends a medication, a test or a treatment, get more information about why this
treatment is necessary for your problem at this time. Get more information about how this treatment
will improve your health and how long it will take to do this. Get more information about the risks of
the treatment and the risk of going without the treatment. Get more information about other alternatives
and the costs of the various alternatives. Remember, no Plan covers all treatments performed in all
locations; you may be required to follow a drug formulary, to go to a certain lab facility to have your
blood drawn or go to certain facility to have your x-rays taken.
10. Finally, when you get home after your visit with the doctor, learn all you can about your health
problem. Information is available from many sources that will help you understand how to keep
yourself well and how to work with your doctor to get better if you do get injured or sick. There are
many sources of good information ? your doctor, the library, the bookstore, and the Internet. Many
doctors offer brochures, medical article reprints, audiotapes or videotapes that will help you
understand your medical condition and its treatment. If your Health Plan has an advice line, call and
ask if they can help you to get more information. Many medical organizations have websites with
information that might be related to you problem. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the
National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research and many other national
disease-specific organizations provide extensive and reliable information on their websites.
Not all information that you might find about your problem is good information; try always to the best
information from reliable and reputable sources. Question any information that encourages you to
spend your own money on therapies that are not supported by good scientific evidence. There is
growing evidence that some complimentary or alternative therapies may be beneficial; you may wish to
discuss these with your doctor to see if they might be incorporated into your overall treatment plan..
Next? Finding a Doctor Who Will Be Your Healthcare Partner?
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