Organizing Medical Information Part 1: Why It’s Important & Pros And Cons Of Storage Options
If you are around my age, you may have grown up watching Little House On The Prarie. Remember Doc Baker? He was the lone doctor in town responsible for all the healthcare needs of everyone. Therefore he remembered details about patients when called to their houses during medical emergencies. However, house calls are a thing of the past, as is having one doctor tending to all of our needs. Now, we typically have a general practitioner for our yearly physical and act as the manager of our healthcare; however, we visit multiple specialists for everything else. So having our information spread among professionals makes taking responsibility for keeping track of our medical history vital.
Why Organize Your Medical History?
Emergencies
Younger folks may think organizing healthcare isn’t something to consider for years to come - right? But imagine someone close to you, such as a partner or child, is in an emergency situation. How easy will it be to fill out medical paperwork about someone else if you’re traumatized? For example, my parents were in a car accident and my mom passed due to the accident. My dad was also injured and in obvious shock about losing his spouse of 52 years. When I arrived at the hospital a few hours later, I had to answer questions about his medical history because he wasn’t giving consistent answers. Thankfully I remembered most things due to my healthcare background and a close relationship with my father, but what if I also couldn’t answer those questions? My parents did not exactly have documents organized and easily accessible meaning if I really needed to answer a serious question I might not have been able to find the information right away. Therefore, he may not have received the most appropriate care in a timely manner.
Quickly Answer Questions In Any Health Related Situation
Having your medical information ready to go and in one location can help significantly reduce stress in an urgent situation. But what about non-emergency scenarios? When you visit a new doctor and need to fill out extensive information, knowing exactly where to find that information can reduce your time and energy having to gather a bunch of records before your appointment. Also, having your previous medical care in one location can assist you in quickly answering questions should a professional call and require more information. Having your medical history at your fingertips can reduce the need to go back into your calendar looking for dates or trying to remember the name of procedures you had from 5, 10, 20, or more years ago.
Chronic Illness or Multiple Conditions
The more you need to visit healthcare professionals, the more critical it becomes to keep your information organized. A chronic illness or multiple diagnoses typically means more tests, bloodwork, and specialists. When you have your information sorted and stored, you can easily share this with your medical team, possibly reducing redundant tests and increasing your chance of quicker and more appropriate treatment options. Easily sharing your medical information is especially important if you reside in more than one state or location during the year. It’s also essential if you live in a rural or even suburban area. Large cities like Los Angeles or New York generally have more medical centers available, offering a wide range of treatment options, but rural areas may not. Therefore, you may be sent to an out-of-network facility for second opinions or ongoing treatment. Although the facility receiving the referral receives some of your medical background, they may not receive all the necessary information and look to you to fill in the blanks.
Health Insurance and Tax Records
Keeping good records can help if you have an insurance denial you wish to appeal. Having all your documents in one place and filed in an organized manner will help you reference all bills, procedures, and doctor’s notes, dictating the medical necessity of the procedures you’ve received. Having all this information will support your claim to appeal. Also, having your health bills and insurance claims will assist you at tax time. At the time of this writing, if you itemize your taxes, the IRS allows you to deduct total qualified unreimbursed medical care expenses that exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income.
Tracking Your Own Healthcare and Patterns
Sadly, many doctor’s visits are rushed and don’t allow much time to gather your thoughts. Doctor’s offices typically get reimbursed by the number of patients and the number of medical codes they can use rather than how many minutes they spend with you. As stated before, we have multiple professionals working towards our care regardless if you have several diagnoses or are the beacon of perfect health. With that in mind, as a society, we’ve become more responsible for our own care. Having your healthcare at hand will help you see how things are changing over your lifetime and if there are patterns that need addressing. Or treatments that worked or didn’t work in case a symptom arises later in your care.
How To Store Your Information
There are a few options for keeping track of your information. Medical information can be stored in a binder, a file cabinet, or digitally. There are pros and cons to each which will be discussed below.
Digital Storage Advantages
A Space Saver
You can store many, many years of medical records and information in one location while taking up very little data. In addition, you will not have a million pieces of paper to sort through when you need to report something to a professional. There’s also the advantage of storing documents for multiple people in one location if you are responsible for caring for more than just yourself.
Digital Is Extremely Portable
Choosing programs and apps that sync up means you can upload information to your computer and access it on your smartphone. Organizing your data in this manner means that no matter where you seek medical treatment, you have all of your information readily available.
Information Is Easily Shared With Family Or Healthcare Proxies.
Storing your information digitally also allows you to easily share with individuals that may help with your care or the care of loved ones. For example, my father stored his medical information in a Google document and shared it with me, so I will see any new updates and have access to his history should I need it if I become his healthcare proxy.
Ease Of Finding Specific Information
Depending on how you store information, you may be able to use search functions to find specific details such as dates, medicines, or procedures without having to sort through several pieces of paper. When you scan documents, you rename the documents to include such things as doctor, illness, type of procedure, etc., so the search function will find any files matching your criteria.
Digital Storage Cons
May Have To Be A Little Tech Savvy
You probably don’t have to be too technology minded to store information digitally, but you do have to have a general knowledge of the programs you wish to use. This is especially true if you want to sync this information to your smartphone. If you and technology aren’t friends and you don’t have someone to help you set it up, this option may not be the best way to go. So even if you do have someone to set it up, you still need to be able to access it should the need arise.
Security
Storing your information online always opens you open to the potential of hackers getting at your personal information. To avoid this, you could scan documents and black out any identifying information. Although safe, it would be time-consuming to edit out all of that information. In addition, if any medical professional needed a copy of the document, it would be worthless to them without your identifying information.
Passwords
If you are like many of us, you forget your passwords on occasion. Anything you sign in to needs a password and will have a password recovery should you forget it. Depending on what’s required to recover the password, this may take a little time. If you are at a doctor’s office and need something immediately, you don’t want to be in a situation where you have no access to your information for the duration of the visit.
Binder Storage Advantages
Information Easily Visible
Typically it’s easier to see items on a piece of paper vs a document scanned into your hard drive. If you’ve organized it well, it’s likely easy to find specific documents that you may need for filling out paperwork or at the request of the doctor’s office.
A Binder Is Portable
You can bring your entire binder to appointments which is especially helpful if you have multiple diagnoses, are seeking a second opinion, or seeking care in a new clinic. Having your history and seeing patterns will assist your healthcare professionals in shaping a plan for your specific needs.
Relatively Easy To Customize
One advantage of a binder is how easy it is to rearrange information as a condition changes or if new disorders are added to your background. If you decide you need a new section, it’s simple to pull out documents to arrange in this new section.
Familiarity With Paper
In the last 15 years or so, medical facilities turned to digital storage in compliance with federal regulations eliminating paper documentation. That means a large portion of the population is used to receiving paper for everything. This familiarity may make creating a binder system for maintaining your medical documents easier.
Binder Cons
Portable But Heavy
Although binders are portable, as you continue to add documents it could get heavy. If you have a chronic illness, you may find this happens rather quickly and can be cumbersome if you have several appointments each month.
Information Might Be Left Out
You can avoid the heaviness of a binder by taking older items out and storing them elsewhere. However, you may then be missing essential information that your doctor needs to make a treatment plan.
Security And Loss
What happens if you misplace your binder while you're out? If you misplace your binder and haven’t made copies, you will lose your history. Not to mention the amount of personal information out there for anyone to view. This may put you at risk for identity theft due to medical records typically listing identifying information including full name, date of birth, and social security numbers
File Cabinet Advantages
Can Store Large Amounts Of Information
As with digital, you can store large quantities of documents and information in a file cabinet in a single location. An added advantage here is that you don’t have to scan anything. You simply tuck away your documents in appropriate folders.
Ease Of Finding Information
If organized well, information may be simple to locate. Using a file cabinet means you can place items in color-coded file folders depending on whatever search criteria you wish to use. You could separate by year, doctor, or even condition.
Safety
Having items at home and not in the Cloud improves the protection of your documents. If you choose this over a portable binder, you likely aren’t taking too many papers to doctor’s offices, reducing the risk of forgetting items containing personal information. In addition, many file cabinets have the option of a lock and key, which could help you secure your personal information.
Large Storage Option If You Care For Several People
As discussed earlier, given the size of most file cabinets, you can easily store large quantities of documents. This option allows you to easily keep and separate information for each individual if you care for multiple individuals, such as children, parents, siblings, etc., especially if anyone has chronic or numerous disorders.
File Cabinet Cons
Not Portable
Obviously, you will not be carrying your entire file cabinet to an appointment. However, if you choose this method, you could keep a binder of the most current items or files relevant to your appointment. The downside is if you forget a document, you will not be able to present all your information on the day of your appointment, which may impact your treatment.
Takes Up A Lot Of Space
File cabinets are not small and generally take up a bit of room. And if you are choosing to keep only your medical information for yourself alone, you may find a lot of empty space in your cabinet thus wasting precious space.
Lots Of Papers Can Add To Clutter
Keeping a lot of papers tucked away can quickly add up to a lot of clutter unless you frequently tend to it. Tossing items several years old can help with this but it can be overwhelming and time-consuming if you’ve kept everything over several years.
Difficulty Finding Items As You Continue To Add
If your information isn’t organized properly, you may have difficulty finding those essential documents needed to track medical conditions or to present to doctors. This can be especially true if you haven’t kept up with keeping your information in order as you’ve added to it.
Organizing your medical information can benefit your well-being, health and peace of mind. Doing so earlier rather than later in your care, especially if you are living with a chronic illness, can potentially assist you in getting better treatment by easily accessing information to present to new doctors and track your numbers. If you haven’t kept documents and wish to start down an organized path, contact your doctor’s office or healthcare facility to ask how to obtain them.