She’s Sharing Exactly How Patients Can Ask Their Doctors For More Extensive Medical Notes So You Can Better Advocate For Yourself And Be More Informed About Your Health
Have you ever been to the doctor’s office and then looked in your patient portal or back at your medical records to see if you could find a solid recap of your visit, only to find that your doctor hardly wrote down any notes?
Online patient portals and services like MyChart are awesome because they make our medical records and contact with doctors much more accessible, but when a doctor doesn’t post thorough notes from your appointment with them, they’re not as helpful as they could be.
Having thorough records of your medical visits and treatment plans is crucial, especially if you’re dealing with some kind of disease, plan on traveling or moving, etc.
Thankfully, TikTok creator, author, and patient advocate Ilana Jacqueline (@ilana_jacqueline) has given her viewers examples of how to speak to doctors and ask them to enter more extensive medical notes from your appointments into your patient portal.
Ilana has a rare immune deficiency disease and knows just how important it is to have thorough medical records.
In her video on asking your doctor for more notes, she recreates a scenario where she begins by simply asking her doctor to write down clinical notes in MyChart.
The doctor tells Ilana she’s “not big on notes” and prefers to have conversations with her patients.
Then, Ilana responds by saying, “I totally appreciate that, but unfortunately for me, I really need a good paper trail with my case. Since my condition is so complex, and because I have so many doctors on my team, and because I might move to another state next year, it’s really important that my doctors record my treatment and progress.”
Ilana’s doctor argues that the nurse put in the symptoms Ilana had and the medications she was given into MyChart, but Ilana insists that she needs more than that. Ilana calmly stresses that she needs summaries of what she went to the doctor for, what was discussed, what the “plan of action” was, and what happened at the end of the appointment.
Xavier Lorenzo – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
Then, Ilana includes a bit in her scenario where the doctor may become defensive and argue that they can’t remember everything from her past appointments.
“That’s okay,” responds Ilana.
“I would even take a letter summarizing what you do recall. So [like] anything that you can remember about the treatments that you suggested or the referrals you sent out, or the surgeries you thought I might benefit from. And from now on, now that you understand the situation, I’m hoping you can take more clinical notes in the future.”
At the end of Ilana’s scenario, her doctor complied with her request.
In the caption of her video, Ilana explains that if your doctor is doing the bare minimum when it comes to recording your appointments in your patient portal or MyChart, they’re doing you a disservice.
When your doctors aren’t thorough with their clinical notes on your health, Ilana says it “opens the door” for other doctors to run the same tests you’ve been through in the past. Don’t put yourself through that, and start asking for more clinical notes! You’ve got this.
@ilana_jacqueline Vitals are not enough. ???? If your doctor is doing the bare minimum in #mychart they are doing you a disservice. They leave the door open for future members of your medical team to feel the need to retest you and make you prove already proven issues. Here’s how to ask for better care in this scenario. Does your doctor take good notes? ? #medicalgaslighting #chronicillness #doctors #medicalrecords #patientadvocacy
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