Going for a checkup
Going to the clinic for my annual.
Hand the agent my insurance card. Hand the agent my credit card. Verify the appointment, transact the co-pay. Walk upstairs, fill out the top line of the form on the clipboard ("no change since last year"), ignore the rest of the request for history. Doc comes in, stethoscope, BP, pulls out PDA for a med check, signs scrip & blood order, shakes hand, bye bye. Two weeks after blood stick, lab results paper copy (the green one -- the canary one stays with my chart, I think) arrives via snail mail at my home. Note scribbled on it "you're fine."
Now rewind.
Let's start at Step 1: "Hand the agent my insurance card." The agent sits in front of a screen. The agent's machine is hooked to the Internet. Matter of fact, at every station in my journey through the clinic, there's a machine, maybe three, hooked to the Internet. Some, like my doc's device, are wireless. How about instead of handing the agent my (laminated paper) insurance card, I hand the agent the URL to my PHR. I negotiate with the agent to make my "personal" health record temporarily my "public" health record, within the confines and guidelines of this particular visit. One negotiated as such, you'll notice that my PHR becomes a clear, succinct, effective mediating agent of its own to guide me along my clinic path (or, more to the point, to guide the medical professionals providing me care along my treatment path). Clean, secure, private, and trackable.
All I have to do, starting at Step 1, is insist that they launch my PHR -- or, no co-pay. Heck -- stick your URL on your cell phone and beam it over to all those agents along the way. It would help if I could get my payer to set up our mutual PHR -- our "Partner Health Record." Seems once you reach critical mass -- that point at which more people are handing over URLs instead of laminated paper -- the providers will be gently influenced into accepting this type of treatment flow. No PHR, no pay for service.
All I have to do -- all we all have to do -- is insist.
Hand the agent my insurance card. Hand the agent my credit card. Verify the appointment, transact the co-pay. Walk upstairs, fill out the top line of the form on the clipboard ("no change since last year"), ignore the rest of the request for history. Doc comes in, stethoscope, BP, pulls out PDA for a med check, signs scrip & blood order, shakes hand, bye bye. Two weeks after blood stick, lab results paper copy (the green one -- the canary one stays with my chart, I think) arrives via snail mail at my home. Note scribbled on it "you're fine."
Now rewind.
Let's start at Step 1: "Hand the agent my insurance card." The agent sits in front of a screen. The agent's machine is hooked to the Internet. Matter of fact, at every station in my journey through the clinic, there's a machine, maybe three, hooked to the Internet. Some, like my doc's device, are wireless. How about instead of handing the agent my (laminated paper) insurance card, I hand the agent the URL to my PHR. I negotiate with the agent to make my "personal" health record temporarily my "public" health record, within the confines and guidelines of this particular visit. One negotiated as such, you'll notice that my PHR becomes a clear, succinct, effective mediating agent of its own to guide me along my clinic path (or, more to the point, to guide the medical professionals providing me care along my treatment path). Clean, secure, private, and trackable.
All I have to do, starting at Step 1, is insist that they launch my PHR -- or, no co-pay. Heck -- stick your URL on your cell phone and beam it over to all those agents along the way. It would help if I could get my payer to set up our mutual PHR -- our "Partner Health Record." Seems once you reach critical mass -- that point at which more people are handing over URLs instead of laminated paper -- the providers will be gently influenced into accepting this type of treatment flow. No PHR, no pay for service.
All I have to do -- all we all have to do -- is insist.
posted by Dr. George at 9:45 AM
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