There comes a point in our lives when most of us will need to visit a new doctor. There are, however, those times when the experience can be stressful to say the least. There will be those times when on our way home we remember the question we really wanted answered. Here is some advice to help take away any regrets you may have on your first visit with the new doctor. You may want to use this advice to help others on their first visit.
Step One: The First Steps
There are several reasons why you may need to see a new doctor:
* Maybe you are dissatisfied with your current doctor
* Seeking a second opinion.
* Changes in your insurance coverage.
Maybe your new doctor is a specialist and your symptoms are beyond your primary care doctors expertise. If this is the case then you will want to make sure you understand the reason for the specialist. Be sure to write down the specific reasons for seeing the specialist.
Be sure to request the specialists name and specialty in writing so you can prepare for the first visit. This way you will be able to do some research so you will feel confident that the specialist has the right training and credentials and that he or she will be a good fit for you.
Before seeing a specialist you should check with your insurance company to make sure you follow their rules for specialist referral. It will depend on the insurance company and the specialist you are seeing, but the insurance company may require your primary care doctor to submit a record of the referral to them. Your primary care doctor’s office more than likely will have information on different insurance procedures for referral. It’s been my experience that most health care providers do this on their own. But it is still good to have it sorted out before you get to the specialist’s office. You must have the proper referral the doctor will not be able to see you.
Step Two: Preparing Your Medical Records
Once you have your appointment scheduled with your new doctor you should make sure that he or she is able to get a copy of your medical records. It’s been my experience that you can get a copy of your medical records yourself, for around $15 and sometimes they will even give them to you for no charge. Without you medical records, including any test results, it is much harder for the new doctor to get to the root of your problems. You could find yourself repeating test you already have the results to and they are both time consuming and costly.
With the changes in information technology, providing your doctors are in the same health care system, your records can be brought up through the electronic medical record on the computer. If, however, your records are not on the electronic medical record system your new doctor will have to have the hand written charts from your primary care doctor. In order for your new doctor to get your records you will have to sign a “Release of Medical Records” request form that allows your primary care doctor to send your medical records to the new doctor. It could take up to a week or so for your new doctor to receive the records in his or her office, be sure to include all records dating back to the first time you started experiencing symptoms, including test results since that time.
Step Three: Preparing for Your Visit
Your medical records won’t tell the whole story of your health. You will have to fill in the blanks, that’s why you should prepare for your first visit by writing down a complete description of your past and current medical conditions and treatments. Microsoft Works has a template that you can use and using a journal to document your symptoms also helps with this process. A symptom journal is a daily record of the symptoms you are experience over a period of several weeks or months. You will start with a description of your symptoms followed by the time of day the symptoms occurred, the length of time they lasted, anything that may have relieved the symptoms, and any other factors associated with their onset. If you keep this diary for any length of time you will start to see patterns. These patterns will make it easier for you to either avoid whatever is the trigger or at least prepare yourself for them. I used this method when I was first diagnosed with fibromyalgia and I kept it for over 10 years. I was able to determine my triggers for the fibromyalgia and now I can prepare for them and there are several I totally avoid. This method has helped me to manage my fibromyalgia.
