Enhance Your Health With Better Communication With Your Doctor
Your communication with your doctors is at the heart of receiving proper care. Doctor visits can be much more productive and transparent with planning and communication.
Here are some simple things to make your visits better and a complete experience. These tips will help make your appointments more meaningful and beneficial to both you and your doctor and healthcare professional. It also makes visits with any other specialists as needs may arise.
Having your questions and notes available to create a more continuity of care. Avoiding missing any valuable information, they may need.
We often go to see our doctor or visit urgent care. Have you ever emerged from the office, or nowadays a telecall. The time you spent you left dissatisfied. Nothing clear and feeling you aren't being taken care of?
As patients and consumers, we need to take control of the visit by being prepared. We need to rebalance our relationship with our doctor. This newfound relationship and better communication will often improve patient outcomes and possibly avoid unnecessary or excessive tests and treatment.
To improve the doctor-patient relationship, we need to realign that relationship. Improving communication is the best way to improve the quality of the visit.
After trying everything to improve the communication line, you may need to consider a more open provider and easier to communicate with you the patient.
Try these strategies:
- Communication is key. Like any other relationship, if you cannot be open with your doctor, how can you guarantee or ensure that you get the care you deserve?
- It is essential to spend the time in quality dialogue, making sure to discuss openly any issues, symptoms, or concerns.
- Both sides benefit from better communication because it makes diagnosis and treatment more accessible. It also makes following the treatment plan a more straightforward process.
2. Patients who have better communication with their medical professionals report higher satisfaction with their care and are more optimistic about their treatment and the chance of getting better.
- Patients feel empowered to ask questions and get involved in their health.
3. Keep a small notebook. Having a notebook handy to take notes or writing down your questions can be a powerful tool for communication. A place to keep notes you may think of between your doctor visits. If you are technical savvy, you could use your tablet or laptop to keep a journal of notes there.
- Write down your questions before a medical appointment. This will help you remember the crucial points you want to ask and make the process easier.
- The notebook can also be helpful during the appointment. You can write down new questions and ensure you get your doctor's instructions.
- After an appointment, the notebook can be a valuable tool for going over what your doctor said. It can help you remember ideas such as new diet information or pill changes.
4. A big binder. Unlike the notebook, the big binder has a different purpose.
- The binder is a good storage option for lab results, articles, and pamphlets. It can help you organize your treatment plan.
- The binder is suitable for keeping track of your overall health.
- Have someone else with you during an appointment. Bring a friend or loved one with you to your doctor's appointments.
- Does your doctor ignore you? Do you have trouble communicating your needs? Are you too shy to handle everything? A friend or loved one can be your voice during an appointment and speak for you.
- They can also help you remember information from your appointment.
5. Research. Before and after your medical appointments, you can research to help you understand treatments, drugs, and other plans. However, please be careful where you find your sources and cautious of what questions you ask your provider. Doctors can be very sensitive to some questions, starting with, "I found this information online..."
- It's important to get valid information from legitimate sources, so avoid unverified websites that seem to be designed only to sell you something. There are many legitimate universities, government, and hospital websites for research.
- You can use the research to communicate better with your doctors because it will help you understand medical terms and issues.
6. Use the phone. If you have trouble confronting the doctor in the office, use the phone.
Do you struggle to speak your mind before your doctor and have regrets after the appointment is over? Do you have several questions you wish you had asked before the doctor left the room?
- If you struggle with speaking to your doctor in the office, consider calling them and asking for help. You can explain your issues and ask the questions you want. If you have a support person, do not hesitate to ask them to join you. Often it is helpful for someone else to be there to help hear and understand what you are being told.
- If you don't have anyone, consider having an advocate that can support you and help you to understand your care. They can also make sure that your treatment plan is optimally deployed. Helping to make sure any follow-up labs or studies optimize your care.
- Good communication doesn't have to be limited to an office setting so that you can find help through the phone. You can also use email to communicate with your doctors. If they're okay with it, a video conferencing call is another way to get the answers you want and need.
Communication is at the heart of any solid relationship with your medical professional. You can improve your communication with simple steps to help you and your doctor.
A great relationship with your doctor is vital. If you struggle to talk to your provider, consider following in us at Think Healthcare Solutions and the Healthitude Academy.
