Make the Most of Your Next Doctors Appointment: 5 Strategies to Get Your Needs Met
We’ve all been there. You wait weeks or months for an appointment with your primary care doctor/pain specialist/rheumatologist/insert specialist of choice. As the days, weeks, or months go by and your pain waxes and wanes you start to come up with questions and concerns. Is it normal to be so stiff every morning? I’m not sure the medication is working anymore- you know how it goes. Then the day of your appointment finally arrives and then one of the following two things happens:
You may feel hopeful or perhaps even grateful that your finally going to get your concerns addressed, but if you’re like most people by the time you drive to the doctor, find parking, walk to the office, sit in the waiting room (or mess with the frustrating always glitchy online telemedicine portal) you’re exhausted and in pain and its hard to remember all of the questions you came in with in the first place. Maybe you have a decent encounter with your physician, but you leave only to realize you never addressed your most pressing concern.
On the flip side, maybe you’re someone who has had their fair share of less than positive encounters with medical professionals. Maybe you are used to being rushed through the appointment and you feel like there’s just not enough time to really get the root of your pain concerns. Maybe a medical provider has made light of your pain or made you feel dismissed. If this sounds like you, you’re definitely not alone, and if you’ve had these negative experiences then you may feel a sense of dread or detachment as your appointment date nears. When you finally do get into the exam room, you may not feel as though you’re able to share you questions and experiences out of fear of being shut down. People who feel this way tend to deal with it in one of these ways : 1) by shutting down and letting the medical provider lead the appointment/do all the talking, 2) by agreeing with the provider even if you don’t really agree- it gets the appointment over and done with faster, or 3) by trying to advocate for yourself but being misinterpreted as defensive or hostile. Regardless of which of these three patterns describes you, chances are that if any of these patterns are occurring, you’re probably not getting your needs met.
Guess What? It does not have to be this way. Check out these strategies to help you make the most of your medical appointments and get your pain needs heard.
1. Make a Rank-Ordered List.
I know, I know- everyone tells you to write your questions down in advance or make a list. Making a rank-ordered list is taking it one step further. When I use the term “rank-ordered list”, what I’m really talking about is following these steps to figure out what is most important to you to get out of your appointment.
As the weeks leading up to your appointment go by and questions or concerns about your pain or your medications pop into your head, write it down. Keep a notepad or use a notes function on your smartphone so that all of your questions are organized together in one place. I like the idea of using your smart phone if you have one, because the list is always with you and you can add to it in real time (and of course you are less likely to forget the list when you go to your appointment).
The night before your appointment or the morning of go through your list and put the questions/concerns in order based on what is MOST important to you. If you have 10 questions you may not get through all of them, but hopefully at least your top 2-3 most important questions or issues got addressed.
2. Use the patient portal.
If your medical provider uses a partial portal with secure messaging/email take advantage of it! This is a great option to use if you have shorter, more straightforward questions left over after an appointment. This is another advantage of the rank-ordered list; the questions you have left over are likely to be of the more straightforward variety and that makes them perfect for email/online communication. In other words, a question like “how many times a day can I use my TENS unit” is much easier to answer via email than something like “I’m worried that my medication isn’t working and I may need to try something different”.
The patient portal is also a great way to communicate with your doctor after an appointment if you forget instructions or information covered in your appointment, though other strategies can help with this as well.
3. Take Notes!
I don’t know about you; I always seem to forget important details in medical appointments. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the information that the doctor is giving you, particularly if it’s an appointment that results in a new diagnosis, a change in medication, or need for lots of follow-up testing. Even if it makes perfect sense in the appointment, by the time I get home I’m exhausted and some of the information just isn’t in my memory bank anymore.
I’ve found that taking notes during the appointment can be extremely helpful. Not only does it help me to remember the information and next steps that the provider and I discussed during the appointment, but it also demonstrates to my provider that want to be an active participant in my healthcare. I’ve never met a provider (as a patient or as a professional) that didn’t welcome note taking in an appointment. So grab a notebook specifically for medical appointments or take notes using your phone- whatever works for you.
Maybe you’re reading this and thinking “well that sounds great, but if I’m taking notes I’ll never be able to get through all my questions or really hear what the doctor is saying”; if that sounds like you, you might want to consider bringing a trusted family member or friend to the appointment to serve as your official notetaker.
4. Check if your provider will book a double appointment.
If you’ve tried all of the strategies above and find that you’re still running out of time during your appointments, you might see if your medical provider is willing and able to schedule you for a double appointment. This is tricky as many providers are constrained by insurance, systemic policies, and other outside factors beyond the control; however, some may be able to do this on occasion with enough advance notice. It never hurts to ask.
5. Plan out how you want the appointment to go.
Sometimes the issue is not that you’re running out of time or that you forget your questions, sometimes the problem comes down to difficulty communicating with a medical provider. It might be that you feel the provider has their own agenda or that they do not really hear what you’re saying. It may be that you don’t want to come across as demanding or rude and so you just go along with what the doctors says and don’t speak up for what you need. If any of this sounds like you, you may want to try a strategy I call “playing it out ahead of time”, and it goes like this:
Before your appointment think about what you need and what you hope to accomplish during you’re appointment. Write it down!
Imagine yourself sitting in the doctors office or exam room and think about exactly what you want to say in order to get your needs met.
Remember almost everyone responds best to easing into a hard conversation (even doctors). You may want to think about saying something like “I really appreciate you suggesting _____ last time, it really helped, but I don’t think it’s helping enough. Can we talk about some other options?”. Phrasing your need in this way helps to set a tone that will hopefully led to an open conversation and ultimately get you closer to getting your needs met, rather than feeling shut down.
Once you have your mental script, you may consider writing it down or practicing a few times.
A final thought
Keep in mind that even if you try all of these strategies, you may still feel like you’re not getting your needs met or you’re not being taken seriously in your medical appointments. If you feel judged, invalidated, or as if the provider doesn’t believe your pain, then you may have a fundamental disconnect with that particular provider. Everyone deserves to feel safe and respected when receiving medical care. Its ok to get a second opinion. Not every doctor is going to be a good fit for every person.
For more resources on how to get the most out of healthcare visits check out the American Chronic Pain Association https://www.theacpa.org/.
