Surviving AmericanSurviving
American Medicine

You can find out what is in your doctor’s medical notes about you, and reading it can save your life. In a recent study by Dr. Tom Delbanco and coauthors, patients were invited to see their doctor’s record of a recent office visit. About 80% of patients looked at the notes. Compared to patients who did not look at their doctor’s notes, patients who read their notes had better compliance with taking medicines. Almost every patient who looked at the notes continued to look at future notes. My experience in sharing my patients’ notes with them is that they followed my instructions better, improved their understanding of their disease and my treatments, and even corrected errors I had made in misunderstanding parts of their medical histories.

To get the best care from your doctor, and to take the best care of yourself, do the following:

• Always request to see a copy of your doctor’s notes
• Make sure you understand what the notes say – ask the doctor to explain if you can’t read or understand what is in the note
• Ask the doctor to correct any errors, mistakes do occur and they can cause serious issues in the future
• Ask the doctor to add any missing information to the notes (especially intolerance to any drugs and any family history of illnesses)
• If your doctor won’t let your note, consider getting a second opinion/new physician
• Request electronic copies of notes. If your physician uses electronic medical records, it is much easier to understand what the doctor thinks about your diagnosis and treatment plan, as you are to decipher it better than most doctor’s handwriting (the Affordable Care Act strongly encourages physicians to use these electronic records)
• Once you return home, re-read the note and be sure you, and also your family, understand all of your preventive care, diagnoses and treatments. Write questions to discuss with your doctor at the next visit, or even call the office staff to help resolve your questions

All of these tips and more can be found in chapter seven of my book Surviving American Medicine.