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The Patient Portal—Help or Hindrance?
Just Want to Talk | Last Active: Feb 17 12:10am | Replies (227)Comment receiving replies
I agree with you in needing to be prepared with questions in advance, as their time is just so limited in today’s medical business model and we must make the most of those minutes with them.
It’s that business that forces our specialists into what you call “tunnel vision”, and we’re the ones, if able enough, trying to connect the dots across our whole medical picture and put the jigsaw puzzle together. We need each and everyone one of them, but we’re the centerpiece with hopefully a good PCP helping manage our total care. I’ve had well meaning specialists prescribe medicine or change doses of one, and it’s on me to ask my cardiologist or GI doc if it’s ok, and several times I could have negatively impacted another issue. So I agree it’s on us to help steer the ship and add some advocacy in our total team approach in managing our care, which makes timely access to reports crucial to having any needed and timely conversations with doctors during appointments.
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@californiazebra, @dbeshears1, @amyb5 and all...You are all so on target. I love the Mayo portal. I've used it since beginning this Mayo journey. It provides me with prompt, timely, and generally helpful information I use to better understand my personal health. I was thrilled when I first went on the Mayo portal, as I've had horrible experiences with other medical offices/facilities and their attempts at a patient portal. Most were/are extremely frustrating and difficult to maneuver and are rarely used well by the medical staff. My PCP is with a large medical center in my city and now, just in the last months, have they developed something usable.
I'm not sure I love the new Mayo changes, but I'll adjust. I prefer the older version, but am learning to deal. I had a nuclear body scan this week and read the results yesterday. So many questions about the reading, but see the ordering doctor in July. I sent a portal message to her staff requesting clarification and called her admin to request her help for me to understand the results. She will contact me and explain what I read so I'll be informed and a happy girl.
This is the way I use it in addition to doing my own research following tests. I am my own and only advocate as learned through decades of poor medical communication and care. I'm very focused on knowledge. I want to know what's happening and why and what we can do to improve my situation, and my daily life. Mayo Clinic works well with this kind of patient, generally. The doctors I visit seem to appreciate my interest and questions, work with me openly and make joint decisions about my care. This is what I've fought for most of my life, since a young woman. I'm now 76 and my health is better in many ways than a decade ago. Because I see only Mayo doctors now other than the PCP-Mayo PCP don't accept Medicare so I'm not able to see them-I get better care, more insight into what and why, leading to better treatment.
I'm grateful for the Mayo system. I use the portal which provides positive guidance for me.
Blessings all, Elizabeth