I can’t tell you how many times I have gone to the doctor with a detailed plan laid out in my mind, questions I wanted to ask, and I envisioned myself taking charge at my appointment. Reality check, that never ends up happening. Something about going to the doctor gets you all nervous and you immediately forget the entire plan that you had in your mind seconds before.
I noticed that I wasn’t the only one who felt this way either. Working in a family practice for years, patients would come in for one thing, but leave with a whole slew of other concerns. Then, they would call shortly after their appointment for more clarification. We would call these patients the “OBTW”. Thus meaning “oh by the way”. The patient comes in for an annual wellness check up, but realizes they have been having a hard time sleeping, which leads to migraines, then unfortunately nausea, and it pretty much continues from there. This was a wellness visit…you know, because you come in well. Somewhere it takes a wrong turn and requires much more attention than a regular appointment.
For a physician, this could be a nightmare on the schedule. You think you are seeing someone that is just checking in, but then they bring all of their OBTW’s. The physician gets behind on their schedule and the next patient wonders why they haven’t come into their room yet. It sort of just dominoes after that. The staff spends the entire day chasing their tails catching up, whilst dealing with patients who are getting tired of waiting.
For me though, it feels like the wellness visit is the one time that a patient does have a chance to voice concerns and ask questions. The appointment itself is less intimidating, so there is a level of comfort to ask what they feel is pertinent. So, how can we flip our wellness visits into what they should be? How can we have a real annual wellness visit when we have all these questions brewing beforehand? Well, it will take some time and effort on your end, but once you catch up with yourself, it is completely possible.
I am a note taker, I like to plan ahead. I like to be prepared and prevent any future visits I may need at the doctor if possible. So, why not develop my own set of medical records that will provide a place for me to keep track of things, jot down my thoughts, my goals, and what I want to get out of my appointment. Well, that’s exactly what I did. It allows me to organize my thoughts and questions prior to my visit and it is something I can use over and over again. Which is a huge win, considering I want to see progress on paper. Now I can.
The point of an annual wellness visit is to literally help prevent disease processes from starting. You can’t do that if you don’t know what questions to ask yourself or the physician. So with the tool I have created, you simply follow along. It is a template all completed for you, you just fill in the blanks. In order to get ahead of your health, it’s important to know where you are starting. This resource will help you organize that and potentially give you a new perspective on what you want for your health and wellness moving forward. Did I mention you can reuse this as many visits as you need? That is such an amazing bonus of this tool.
