How do we Advocate for Ourselves?

Even if you don’t have a serious or life threatening illness, or don’t have access to a healthcare advocate any time of the day or night, there are tactics you and your family can use to advocate for yourself or your loved ones. Using these tactics will make your healthcare go more smoothly, with fewer missteps and hopefully fewer errors and delays of needed care. And these are things anyone can do! You just need to be prepared.  Here are 3 of the most important tips for advocating for yourself:
1. Have your important health information with you. 
For most people this means having printed out your contact information, who to call in an emergency, your medical conditions, medications, and allergies. I have developed a Health Portfolio™ that has all this information in a loose leaf binder that is easy to carry with you, as well as a one page easily portable form that can be taken anywhere (contact me if you are interested in this service).
2. Make a list of questions for your doctor before you go to an appointment, and at the appointment, write down the answers. 
This enables you to review what was said later, when you can think more clearly. You can then check with reliable sources to clarify, like a healthcare advocate, good internet sources, or the staff of your doctor’s office.
3. Have someone come with you and take notes.
 I can’t stress how important this is if you are going to an appointment to get results of tests, especially biopsy results when you are concerned about cancer. Once you hear the results, if they are not what you were hoping for, most people do not hear a word! Their brain goes into that altered dream state where they are aware that someone is talking but have no idea what is being said. They are too involved in the movie in their head where everything is going badly. And its hard to take notes yourself when you are in that state.
4. If you use the Internet, look at reliable sites.
For instance, use the Mayo Clinic site, Uptodate, WebMD.
​These tactics should help to insure that you have accurate information both to give to your doctor, and most importantly, that you get from your doctor. Having questions written down ahead of time means your concerns will be addressed, and having a friend or family member as a scribe makes sure that you have the information that was given to review.