Here are some tips for making the most of the visit to make sure to get your issues addressed.

1 - Stay focused

Unfortunately there is only so much time for the visit, so make the most of that time. It is nice to be friendly and develop a rapport with your doctor especially if you are both new to each other. However, staying focused allows you to get more things addressed at a visit and also keeps wait times for other patients at a minimum.

2- Have an agenda and disclose it at the beginning of the visit.

You may have multiple things that you want addressed at the visit. If 15 minutes are spent talking about one or two things and your doctor is ready to leave and see the next patient, springing additional issues at that time isn't fair to the patients who are waiting to be seen. A better plan would be to start the visit by going through all the issues that are important to you and then you and your doctor can plan which are the most important issues that need attention today and deal with those.

3 - Always bring your medications with you.

In an ideal world, your medical record would have all of the medications that you are currently taking, no medications that you stopped on your own because it wasn't working or the side effects were terrible, all the medications from the specialists that you have seen as well as exactly when you are going to run out of all of your meds. We try very hard to make this happen.

Unfortunately the reality is that medication lists, despite our best efforts, are not up to date and this can be hazardous to your health. The more doctors that you see and the more medications you have, the more important it is to bring in your actual medication bottles. Also if your doctor tells you that you should stop a certain medication, he definitely does not know whether it is the little white round one or the little beige round one. By bringing in your meds you are your doctor can more easily talk about each of your medications.

-Brad White