Organize Your Family Medical Records

Whether making an appointment or in the middle of an emergency, having medical records handy and updated are an essential part of keeping your family healthy.  However, if your family is small or large, keeping up with records can be overwhelming.

Keeping organized records of your family’s medical history, medications and insurance is important for a couple of reasons:

1.  Keeping medical records accessible reduces the risk of medication errors or medical mistakes, can help reveal family patterns of disease and may lead to early detection of inherited, genetic or chronic illnesses.

2.  Consolidates all of your family’s health information makes you and your family active participants in your health care.

3.  Tracking other information such as immunizations, allergies, tests, medical procedures and appointments fosters communication with your doctor which is an essential key to your healthcare.

To organize your records, here are three steps to help you be prepared for any medical need that may arise:

1. GATHER

Create a medical file folder for each member of your family. An expanding file is a great solution for keeping all your files in one place, especially if you are at the doctors frequently. The file should include medical history, current medications, health status and any other information you think may be important to a doctor.

2. ORGANIZE

Label each person’s file with their name.  Keeping the most current information in the front of each file, sort information into groups like:  History, Prescriptions, Insurance, Bills, Questions to ask the Doctor, etc.  This would be a great time to contact doctors and insurance company to verify account and medical treatments/medication information is correct and current.

3. UPDATE

Your set, next time you see the doctor simply update your folder with the appropriate papers (and we all know that they will give you a lot of papers to file).

As you are organizing your family’s records, you may decide that you need to keep the records online so you can have access to them from anywhere. Here are some tools and apps to check out:

LifeInCase  –  My Medical App  –  Medical Apps

By preparing now it will make things fell less overwhelming, especially during an emergency.

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