We are changing, and the practice of medicine is slowly changing. More and more, we ask those questions, will go to another doctor if we don’t feel our treatment is correct and adequate, and are beginning to realize that we are ultimately responsible for our own health.
So, who should be in charge of our health care team? Answer these questions:
- Who is with our bodies 24/7?
- Who knows our symptoms best?
- Who is most impacted by how we feel?
- Who is most affected by the success or failure of our treatment?
- Who pays the $$ for the appointment or for the insurance that pays for the appointment?
- Who is ultimately responsible for our lives and our health?
The answer? We are? Right! Therefore, we should be in charge of our health care team. We need to find doctors who are willing to work with us as treatment partners. That means that they give us the same respect they expect from us. That means they listen to us, don’t mind answering questions, and don’t resent that we are educated “consumers” in the health care market. When doctors work with us as treatment partners, they don’t make decisions for us, they make decisions with us. Doctors who work this way say it’s much more effective. When patients take part in the decision-making process, they’re more compliant patients, and stick to treatment plans far better.
How an effective Health Care Team Should Work:
So far, we’ve determined that we’re ultimately responsible for our health and that we should be in charge of our health care team. Our partner in this should be our primary care physician (PCP), family doctor, internist, whomever is your primary doctor. I’ll just refer to that doctor as our PCP. Our PCP sees to as many of our medical needs as possible, referring us to specialists as needed.
We should be able to expect any specialists we need to see to work with us in the same fashion we expect our PCPs to work with us: as treatment partners. Those specialists should automatically be sending regular reports to our PCP, and should be willing to send reports to other doctors at our request. If any aspect of treatment with a specialist has the potential to affect a health issue being treated by another specialist or our PCP, it is quite reasonable to ask that specialist to consult with the other specialist or our PCP. It is not our job as patients to be go-betweens. Each person who is added to the communication chain between doctors increases the chances of miscommunication or confusion.
