How to Talk to Your Doctor, so Your Doctor Will Listen

Here’s the thing — doc­tors are busy. Most are tied to insur­ance com­pa­ny stan­dards and more rules, reg­u­la­tions, and paper­work than we could ever even begin to imagine.

Here’s the oth­er thing — you’re busy. And gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, if you’re in a doc­tor’s office, you don’t feel your best. You need help and you need it NOW.

So how do you find that hap­py bal­ance between get­ting your ques­tions answered and the help that you need, and keep­ing the doc­tor invest­ed in your case?

Lucky for you, I’ve com­plet­ed exten­sive expe­ri­en­tial research in this depart­ment — that’s a fan­cy way of say­ing that I’ve attend­ed more doc­tors’ appoint­ments in my life­time than I can even begin to count! So I know a few things about get­ting the most out of your 15 min­utes. Here is a list to get you started:

1. Do your home­work — No, this does­n’t mean I want you to spend count­less hours on Web­MD try­ing to diag­nose your­self (Scraped knee? Pre­pare for ampu­ta­tion! Sore throat? A tra­cheoto­my is inevitable!) I want you to do your home­work on the DOCTOR. Is he/she a sole-prac­ti­tion­er or part of a group? Is there an online por­tal for ease of com­mu­ni­ca­tion? Do they take your insur­ance? Is the office in a con­ve­nient loca­tion for your life?
2. Write down a list of ques­tions, and star the most impor­tant ones. Make a copy of your list and when you get to your appoint­ment, you can hand it to the doc­tor and go through your ques­tions togeth­er. This is a win-win as the doc­tor knows your ques­tions ahead of time, you’re guar­an­teed to get answers, AND the doc­tor has a cheat sheet when he/she writes up the office summary.
3. Write down a list of any med­ica­tions and/or sup­ple­ments you’re tak­ing and bring it with you. This includes pills, nose spray, eye drops, herbal reme­dies, etc.
4. Be pre­pared to talk with pur­pose — your doc­tor has lim­it­ed time and wants to make the most of it. Share your list of ques­tions as soon as appro­pri­ate and be respect­ful of his/her time.
5. Always, always, always make your last ques­tion — “When and how should I fol­low up?” We waste so much time as patients in the lim­bo of get­ting in touch with our doc­tors. If test results are forth­com­ing, ask when you will hear back from the doctor.
6. Make sure your doc­tor knows who you are on a deep­er lev­el than a piece of paper. Are you hop­ing to avoid phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal inter­ven­tion? Say so. Are you con­cerned about how your phys­i­cal ther­a­py might impact your overnight nurs­ing shifts? Speak up. So often we are dis­ap­point­ed when our doc­tor rec­om­mends med­ical inter­ven­tion that isn’t con­ducive to our lifestyle, and truth be told, we were expect­ing them to be able to read our minds.
7. Write down the rea­son you’re in the office and the symp­toms you’re hav­ing. How often have you left an appoint­ment only to think, “I for­got to talk about x, y, and z!” Your mind can go blank or get eas­i­ly dis­tract­ed, so always always always write it down!
   (Are you notic­ing a theme here? I rec­om­mend a note­book des­ig­nat­ed sole­ly for med­ical pur­pos­es, so you are always guar­an­teed to have the infor­ma­tion you need. Bonus points if you pho­to­copy your insur­ance card and tape it to the inside cover!)
8. Bring a friend! If you’re going for an annu­al phys­i­cal or a mun­dane trip to the den­tist, it may not feel nec­es­sary to have a side­kick, but oth­er­wise, feel free to bring back-up. Espe­cial­ly with spe­cial­ist appoint­ments, it can be help­ful to have a note-tak­er and sec­ond set of ears.
9. Get. A. Sec­ond. Opin­ion! We don’t like to think about this, but just like any­thing, med­i­cine is a PRACTICE. That means that dif­fer­ent physi­cians will have dif­fer­ent opin­ions, and an edu­cat­ed patient will gath­er all thoughts before mak­ing a deci­sion. A good doc­tor will sup­port and even encour­age you to get anoth­er opin­ion, and if he/she dis­ap­proves, you’re going to want to head to the near­est exit any­way. When we don’t feel well, our abil­i­ty to think log­i­cal­ly can be altered and we are more like­ly to rush into med­ical inter­ven­tion we don’t need. One time a sur­geon near­ly con­vinced me to cut out my stom­ach. True story!
10. Last­ly, it’s okay to be a squeaky wheel. Speak up if you don’t under­stand, ask ques­tions, mes­sage your doc­tor on the por­tal, add the nurs­es’ line to speed dial — what­ev­er it takes for you to feel safe, healthy, and hap­py. You’re not being annoy­ing, you’re self-advo­cat­ing and there is no more impor­tant rela­tion­ship that the one you have with yourself!