Keeping your own medical record
August 29th, 2006 | by Brian |For a while I’ve been disturbed that I have better records of my car’s maintenence record than my own medical record. (It’s about time I get it from graduate insitution…) It’s 2006, and the state of technology concerning this seems quite behind. Everytime I see a doctor I fill out a form (pen and paper!!) about my medical history.
Now, I realize that the medical industry is burdened with dozens or hundreds of regulations, medical records are a touchy subject regarding preexisting conditions and insurance. Of course, the system is so messed up that a lifestyle choice such as smoking doesn’t increase your premiums if your health insurance is through your employer. Health insurance being tied to your employer, hence choking competition and job mobility — another fine legacy of the “New Deal.” Thanks FDR!
Anyway, my simple question, which I posed to the admin staff at the podiatrist’s office was this: Why not submit my medical history to my insurance company so they offices can download it when I make a visit? Or why not have a on-line service that I can purchase that stores this info, independent of insurance, that a doctor’s office can retrieve at my request? Well, apparently there’s at least one service like this: yourmedchart.com. Hmm.
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2 Responses to “Keeping your own medical record”
By Maffalda on Aug 30, 2006 | Reply
My sister is a dentist and I asked her once about the low-tech record keeping. She told me that in case there is a lawsuit or investigation of any kind it is convenient that the records are in her own handwriting.
Frankly, I would like to have copies of my medical record but I don’t want my history floating online or even offline. Holistic medicine all you want, but my eye doctor doesn’t need to know what goes on elsewhere. Unless I have a major illness, as the site suggests (G’d forbid), I wouldn’t do it.
By Andrew on Sep 1, 2006 | Reply
In the future, we’ll have a little chip implanted in our body with our medical records (and maybe our DNA), so we can just take it with us. Piece of cake.