Whether you go to the doctor annually or a few times a year, you know it’s an investment of your time and energy. If you’ve ever felt frustrated by the process at the office, confused by the answers or options you received, or just frustrated by the questions you forgot to ask, then you’ve experienced a doctor appointment that was not optimal in what it was designed to do.
Physicians see lots of people each day, and they and their staff work in an environment they’re as intimately familiar with as they are their own homes. It’s easy for the rest of us to feel intimated and rushed when we witness it. However, with the right preparation and understanding of your role in the communication, you can go to a doctor appointment both calm and ready to benefit from the experience.
Here, we’ll walk through how to make a plan for an appointment, which includes preparing relevant health history, listing all your medications, and organizing your thoughts and questions ahead of time to make the most of your visit to the doctor’s office.
Know Your Health History
If you’ve walked the earth for some time, chances are you’ve got a medical past. And so, before you go to your appointment, be sure to document the biggest events and most relevant data from your health history on paper. The list should include surgeries, medical conditions, and the physicians you’ve seen in the past, along with their addresses and phone numbers.
If this is your first time seeing a particular doctor, call ahead and ask if they need access to your medical records from another network or physician. Remind the office of the general purpose of your visit and ask if there is anything specific you need to bring, such as lab work related directly to the scheduled appointment.
Know Your Medications
List the doses and names of all the medicines you take if you don’t already have one. And if you do, keep that list current as a part of your health history. Even when you think you’ve detailed your medications before for a doctor, you’ll often be asked to repeat it with each visit. This is their way of checking whether the doses and medicines you take have remained the same.
Be sure your medication list includes any supplements you use as well, as some can result in harmful interactions with your medications such as blood thinners. Over at AARP in the article, “Most Patients Don’t Tell Their Doctors They Take Supplements,” they report that 69 out of 100 seniors take supplements, but only about a third are questioned about supplements by their physicians. Note that if you’re speaking to the doctor who prescribed you medications, an appointment is a great opportunity to discuss doses and alternatives if you have adverse effects from your medicines, too.
Prepare Your List of Questions
Identify the purpose of your appointment, such as a change in symptoms or something new that is concerning you, and prioritize your questions on paper. Your focus will depend on whether you’re seeing a general practitioner or a specialist regarding a specific issue.
Understanding the type of appointment that you have with the doctor will also help you focus as to what you need report. If you’re seeing a heart doctor, for example, they will be interested in specific symptoms such as shortness of breath and fatigue. On the other hand, your gastrointestinal doctor will be more interested in your frequency of bowel movements and issues related to digestion. Remember, the doctor can’t do their job of diagnosing and treating you without your accurate information, so try to be specific.
If the visit is a general check-up or preventative type, prepare broader questions regarding annual maintenance, such as a scheduling a colonoscopy, vaccines, or other annual exams. If you need ideas for the kinds of questions you could ask, review a basic list such as the one over at Women’s Day to use as a springboard.
Bring a Friend and Take Notes
If you’re concerned you’ll miss information at your appointment, or just want moral support, consider bringing a friend or family member. Sometimes the answers doctors provide might be technical enough that having a second set of ears to talk to after the appointment will help you digest what you learned.
If you have a more complicated health history, it might be a good time to bring in an expert who can advocate for you with medical professionals and help you make sense of medical information. At Home Health Companions we offer Aging Life Care certified professionals who provide this support as well as advocating for their patients in other ways, too.
Aging Life Care certified professionals can be a bridge to help you navigate your health concerns through available resources and multiple medical professionals, and then help you set a manageable plan with realistic expectations.
A wonderful service available today that many providers and offices now provide is the ability to ask questions via email, too, especially for specialties. So much of the time, once you get home from an appointment you realize that you forgot to ask a certain question, or you have some point you need to clarify. These days, digital communication permits you to communicate with your doctor’s office and then move on to other things in life until they get back to you.
Be Your Advocate
In the “olden” days, people often looked to physicians to be all-knowing authorities in white coats who could not be questioned and certainly weren’t relatable. Today, however, it benefits both the doctor and patient to see themselves in a partnership instead.
The doctor can’t do his or her best work and use all that expertise without the accurate information that only patients can provide. And no matter the illness or issues, a huge part of feeling well is feeling informed and able to make the decisions that are right for you.
Bibliography
https://www.aarp.org/health/drugs-supplements/info-11-
2010/most_patients_dont_tell_their_doctors_they_take_supplements.html