Advocating for your loved one during a visit to the doctor’s office
Your role might be in finding and managing the different visits and treatments your loved one needs. There can be an overwhelming number of medical specialists who become involved in your loved one’s care such as primary care doctors, neurologists, gerontologists as well as other medical specialties, and this can be hard for anyone to navigate! Keep a list of your loved one’s doctors and their contact details in an accessible place. Maybe stick it up on the fridge!
Make sure that not only are you familiar with all your loved one’s doctors but that they also know who you are and how they can contact you if needed.
Keep a running list of questions that you want to ask the doctor. It’s important to make sure that you also document the doctor’s responses during the visits. You can use the Lizzy Care Feed to keep a history of the questions you want to ask the doctor as well as getting input from any other members of the care circle and then write up your notes at each visit so everyone is kept fully up-to-date. If you don’t understand something the doctor says then ask for clarification. It’s important to speak up!
If your loved one has difficulty getting around then investigate whether the doctor can provide transportation to the visit (check what the costs might be for that and whether the insurance will cover those costs) you can also consider doing some visits via telehealth and you can even look for providers who specialize in providing home visits.
