Do I Need Medical Records for a New Doctor?

Do I Need Medical Records for a New Doctor – Overview

You could go to a new doctor for a variety of reasons. It could be that you have moved to another city or state, or are not satisfied with your previous doctor’s service, or any other reason. In such situations, you may wonder if you need to obtain your medical records for the new doctor.

The simple answer is yes; you must take your medical records to a new doctor. This is necessary for the new doctor to evaluate your condition and prescribe effective treatment options. To ensure efficient and optimal treatment, it is necessary to bring certain types of useful medical information to a new physician or healthcare provider.

In this post, we shall take a look at some of the most useful health information you need to bring to the first visit with a new primary healthcare physician.

Importance of Medical Records

Though you are not obligated to bring your old medical documents to a new doctor, it is still highly recommended for several reasons. Usually, patients tend to bring only their current medicine prescription to their first visit, and the new doctor has to request the patient’s detailed health information from their previous physician.

This often takes some time and thus delays the doctor from evaluating the condition and prescribing treatment. The first visit to a new doctor can often be less satisfactory than imagined.

Even though the new doctor can interview you and perform a physical exam, it is more difficult if the patient is older. Thus, having the patient’s extensive medical record beforehand can help save precious time for the physician and patient alike. This makes a huge difference in the promptness and quality of healthcare a patient receives from a new doctor.

6 Types of Useful Medical Information to take to a New Doctor

Do I need Medical Records for a New Doctor

The most useful medical records to take to a new doctor

Here is a list of medical records to take to a new doctor to ensure the first visit is more useful. This list contains documents that are especially useful for aging adults with chronic health problems seeking primary care from a new doctor.

However, most of these documents can come in handy for adults and children who go for their first visit to a new primary care physician. Additionally, this list of medical records can also make the difference between life and death in emergency and urgent care cases.

Let’s take a look at some of the most useful medical records to take to a new doctor:

1 – Chronic health conditions

This list should include any health conditions that currently require you to seek medical advice or are being monitored by healthcare professionals. It should also include the year that the health condition was first diagnosed or any significant change in the condition after the first diagnosis. Besides this, you can also include other major health problems that you have experienced in the past but are not being treated for currently.

Today, electronic medical records usually generate a list of a patient’s health conditions automatically. However, these tend to be long and cluttered with different diagnoses that could still be relevant. So, make sure to keep a list according to the problems your previous primary care physician was treating you for.

2 – List of medication

Make sure to make a list of all prescribed medicines, as well as any over-the-counter medicines and dietary supplements you might be consuming. Besides this, it is also helpful to highlight new or recently started medications, recently stopped medications and medications that have caused problems in the past.

3 – Lab Test results

These commonly include any blood tests and urine tests you may have undergone previously, besides other lab test results from the past 1 to 2 years.

Some of the specific lab tests results that are especially helpful for a first visit to a new physician are:

CBC (Complete Blood Count) test
Thyroid function tests – TSH (Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone) and FT4 (Free Thyroxine)
Urine analysis
Electrolyte panel test – includes testing for potassium, sodium, chloride, CO2
Renal panel test – involves BUN (Blood Urea Nitrogen) and creatinine tests

Make sure to bring any lab test reports you may have, as it helps the new physician to determine what the previous doctor had prescribed and checked. This is also an effective way for the new doctor to determine any pattern or trend from the dates of the tests. It is often extremely helpful to compare the test results from the latest test to the previous ones.

4 – Diagnostic imaging reports

Bring in any x-ray, ultrasound, CT scan, and MRI report you may have from the past 1 to 5 years, as these are especially useful to the new doctor for accurate evaluation.

5 – Diagnostic Test results

You should also carry other medical diagnostic reports, including EKGs, pulmonary function tests, biopsy results, cardiac catheterization reports, neurophysiology evaluation reports, etc., for a first visit. This helps to determine if a previous diagnosis is related to a current chronic health condition.

6 – Emergency department reports

You should also try to get a copy of the narrative reports that doctors make when a patient comes in for emergency medical services or needs to be hospitalized. Healthcare providers for use by other medical professionals, including primary care physicians, generate these reports.

Hence, these reports will help the new doctor to decide if your current chronic condition is resulting from a previous emergency medical problem.

In this, you should bring along the emergency room clinical note, which is dictated or typed by the emergency room physician. It also includes the hospital admission history and physical test documents, which the admitting doctor creates when a patient is initially admitted into the hospital or emergency room.

Besides this, you should also attach a hospital discharge summary which is written by the discharging doctor at the time a patient is released from the hospital.

Conclusion

It is incredibly helpful to take medical records to a new doctor. The above-listed medical documents are essential for prompt and proper diagnosis and treatment of your health problem. These help your new doctor to learn about your health history and offer effective healthcare services.

References

https://www.medifind.com/news/post/medical-records-why-they-matter-and-how-to-request-them

https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/get-records.html

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/question-how-can-i-get-my-medical-records-28137.html

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