Advice on providing information to get initial appointment

Posted by peabody88 @peabody88, Sep 15, 2018

Hello everyone,
I have been suffering from chronic health issues since June 1, 2018 and am finally moving forward with an application to the Mayo Clinic after urging from two of my specialists, my family and my co-workers. I spent last week gathering together all the testing, reports, office notes, etc. from the multitude of specialists I've seen these past three months. I made various spreadsheets that contain all my testing (and I mean ALL going back to my discharge report from the hospital at birth) categorized into blood, urine, etc. for easy date-to-date comparison; a document with all my symptoms, risk factors for illness (like the walk in the woods I took a week before my symptoms started or that I've never had chicken pox), history of symptoms broken into current, resolved, long-term, etc.; surgical and family medical history; a fever tracker with high and low temps each day and any new or prevalent symptoms; and last but not least, a comprehensive timeline that has any testing for that day with any abnormal results and any appointments and what was discussed. I've put all testing/office notes/etc. in chronological order and made a list of all my current medications and previous medications that were tried since June. My hope was that providing all the information together, and in an organized way, rather than having each doctor send in records at random would make my case easier to review and more likely to be granted appointment sooner. I have two contradictory concerns:

1) This is too much information that might overwhelm or discourage someone from looking at my case.
2) Only including the recent information since the start of symptoms might leave out the critical clue that could crack my case. This is particularly true since an autoimmune disease is also being considered (both my infectious disease specialist and rheumatologist have referred me to Mayo).

I just want to get some answers and get better. Does anybody have any advice as to what or how much information to provide for the initial referral (prior to acceptance)? Any advice overall for increasing my chances of getting an appointment or getting a diagnosis?

With regards to the physician referral, I have the form from the infectious disease specialist and have sent the rheumatologist the form. Does anyone have any advice for when many different specialties are a possible cause/involved?

Really, any suggestions or guidance at all would be appreciated. No doubt I'm overthinking and over-stressing this, but I'm running out of FMLA at work and am tired of feeling crummy. I want to make sure I've done or am doing everything I can to get better.

Thanks in advance!

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Infectious Diseases Support Group.

Hi @peabody88. Being thorough is certainly not a bad thing. Although I cannot promise an appointment or guarantee that you will get one right away, having a physician referral is a strong start. If your physician is urging you to seek an appointment, it may be more beneficial to have your physician or provider request the appointment. If they are not aware how, you could certainly share this link and information with them, https://www.mayoclinic.org/medical-professionals/provider-relations/refer-a-patient. Again, this does not guarantee that you will get an immediate appointment, but having a physician on your side is a good start. Do you think this is something that your provider will support?

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Yes, I picked up the referral form from the infectious disease specialist on Friday (not sure if the rheumatologist sent hers to Mayo directly or hasn't completed it yet) and will be sending it with all of my documentation on Monday. I was just overthinking/worrying about how much and what information to send.

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@peabody88

Yes, I picked up the referral form from the infectious disease specialist on Friday (not sure if the rheumatologist sent hers to Mayo directly or hasn't completed it yet) and will be sending it with all of my documentation on Monday. I was just overthinking/worrying about how much and what information to send.

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@peabody88, this is a tough question I am not qualified to answer. If it would give you peace-of-mind, I suggest calling the Mayo Clinic appointment office and asking that very question. They will be able to provide you with the best guidance on what documents to send on and where to send them. Their contact information can be found here, https://www.mayoclinic.org/appointments. They will be the best resource to address your concerns as they are trained to answer the very question you are asking.

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